Decisions, decisions... How my thoughts on parenting have taken a 180.

I'm not sure when I'll be brave enough to post this. As of today, Tycho is 10 days old, so we'll see how long it takes me to actually... you know, buck up the courage. :)

I was so lucky to have the most perfect birth I could have ever asked for. It was at a birth center, no interventions, with supportive people, in water... it seriously could not have gotten better. I was taken aback by how quickly and ideally it worked out, and have come to savor in it.

Everything since then, however, has been completely different. I had all these pragmatic ideas on how we would raise Tycho: We would cloth diaper (after his umbilical stump came off, as even the BG newborn AIOs were too big for him!), I would exclusively breastfeed (EBF), we'd introduce a bottle only when preparing for daycare, we would cosleep in some shape or form.

Literally nothing on that front has worked out.

And you know what? I'm okay with that.

I ended up getting some mild PPD after his birth (as of this writing, I'm still battling it, though it is getting easier), and for at least the first week of his life, I was in a desperate fog where I actually found Tycho to be so much a burden that I wanted nothing more to do with him.

Nursing took at least an hour each time, and though his latch and suck were strong, it didn't seem effective if he was on the boob for that length of time. He was eating every two hours, and considering one of those hours was spent actually feeding him, I only had a break for an hour at a time. This went on day and night, leaving me exhausted and crying.

Not to mention what all this did to my nipples. After only a couple days, Tycho had made some deep gouges in both of them, my right nipple especially, and I came to dread each time I would have to feed him. So it wasn't only taking forever and leaving me drained and exhausted, but I would cringe at the thought of that one hour of rest flying by because I knew I would be in so much pain.

But I went through it for another few days. By day seven, I had given up, telling Matt that I didn't want to do it anymore. I ended up pumping for a day or two after that, doing so after each feeding. Pumping showed that I was making enough milk (if barely), and I'd have 3 ounces from both breasts combined. Pumping came with its own struggle, though -- when I wasn't feeding him, I was pumping, tied down to a machine that left me feeling like a dairy cow.