Mommy Guilt

I promised myself I wouldn't feel any guilt about how I fed Baby Girl. I was well-educated (or as well-educated as one can be without knowing exactly what will happen, anyway) on the options, and gave myself a healthy dose of reality. I knew it was a BIG GUILT issue for so many friends who weren't able to feed their children the way they had envisioned or chose to do it differently than others in their life thought they should.

So I began my own personal journey telling myself I had options and I would not surrender to the BIG MOMMY GUILT.

I also told myself that my emotional crises of the past several months had not hindered anyone but me.

Until now. The two worlds collided.

Baby Girl is now formula-feeding 60% of the time. I have zero guilt about it, or, rather, about the fact that she is on formula. What consumes me is not that my own body failed me (as I suspected that it might) - because it didn't, it wasn't that there was not enough, it wasn't that I was working (though I can't say I miss feeling like a milk cow).

It is that my own insular emotional crisis prevented me from seeing and responding to Baby Girl's needs. During a 5-week period between month 3 and month 4, Baby Girl gained only 7 ounces. Babies in mine and Himself's families are small genetically. But they grow. During the month of December, Baby Girl crossed the line from small to not growing.

I knew she was too small - that she wasn't growing - but in the maelstrom of my darkest days, I failed to realize that the signals she was giving me were of need. She wasn't like other babies - becoming more efficient and taking less time - though everyone said she should be, that I was feeding too long. I chalked up her whimpers at the end as a need to suck. "Don't let them use you as a pacifier" everyone cautioned.

My own mind was too full of dense fog to listen to Baby Girl instead of everyone else.

She wasn't eating enough. She stopped growing. On top of it all, no matter the amount of calories I consumed, no matter how carefully I tried to add "good" calories, my milk wasn't rich enough. Even when I realized the problems, she barely added any weight. No matter how much she nursed, the line had been crossed from "small and healthy" to not growing steadily.

At 5 months, after a month of mixing and supplementing, we converted to formula, except for the beginning and end of each day. She drank and drank and drank. 5 ounces. 6 ounces. 7 ounces. 8 ounces. She put on 1.5 pounds.

Today is Baby Girl's half-birthday. Six months (27 weeks) ago today, she joined this world - tiny, content and perfect. At her six-month checkup, we celebrated her growth. I felt immensely relieved that it wasn't an issue of her body, and at the same time feeling horribly guilty as I realized it was me.

"You shouldn't worry about it." "You couldn't have known." "Everyone feels that way."

But I feel sadness. Partially for my body's inability to produce the right milk - and for my own inability to overcome my apathy to food - and eat. The one time when, Instead of taking advice, examining it and using the applicable parts, I depended entirely on the advice of others, because I was on auto-life, too distanced from my instinct to hear its voice among the fog. It was there. Baby Girl was there, gently protesting. And I heard none of it.

So, while I celebrate the fact that she has almost doubled her birth weight - tipping the scales at 12 pounds, 6 ounces at 6 months old, I mourn the fact that, while genetically small, Baby Girl should have passed that milestone a month ago.

Every time someone says "what a tiny little girl" I feel a stab, and the Mommy Guilt voice I swore I'd never listen to chants, "you didn't listen." over and over and over again.

I'm just glad that I can move on - rise above - watch her grow, and while I'll remember, she will continue to love and snuggle and smile. For in her world, nothing is too big to be forgiven.