Awful First Week

I'll be honest here.  Our first week as parents was completely overwhelming.  We had beautiful wonderful moments with Alessandra, of course, but we also experienced so many frustrations, tears, and felt both scared and helpless.  I'll start by sharing those and share the joys after the harsh reality.

We didn't sleep the first few days after we became parents.  So many people had told us that we needed to "sleep when the baby does" to make it through the newborn phase and we were absolutely terrified when we thought back on the first few days and realized Alessandra hadn't slept more than 30 minutes at a time. She was always fussy.  She breastfed non-stop, which the nurses told me was a normal thing called "cluster feeding".  I was left exhausted and bleeding from the excessive feedings.  She wouldn't poop.  The fact that she wouldn't poop was actually a big deal.  There were calls to emergency nurse lines, an earlier than usual second pediatric appointment & great concern overall over the situation.

At the hospital where she was cluster feeding:

 At home as efforts to exclusively breast feed continued:

 At the pediatrician's office:

After several calls with the nurses and pediatrician I was told to supplement Alessandra's diet with formula. I did not want to give her formula!! I want her to have mama's milk.  There was an immense amount of pressure from the hospital staff, the pediatrician, society and from myself to exclusively breastfeed. I've always thought of formula as chemicals - almost like a can of coke - and wanted to only give Alessandra what was 100% natural & meant for her consumption.  I was initially horrified at the thought of giving that to my new tiny baby.
I didn't argue with the pediatrician though and I did as she said.  I cried over the fact that I was giving formula to my baby but I knew I'd rather feed her formula than see her continue to cry non-stop and not sleep.  Once the formula was being used, I used a pump to see how much milk I was producing.  My sister was nice enough to immediately send her husband over with a pump (they take a long time to arrive after putting in an order).  I was so disappointed with the tiny amount that came from one breast and the fact that only blood would come from the other.  I felt like an absolute failure and immediately wondered how long I had been starving Alessandra by only giving her the tiny amount of breast milk that I was producing. It was so disappointing to have to deviate from my plan and my intentions for her but I knew I had to set aside my own ego and do what was best for her.  I was determined to breastfeed.  Even if I could only pump half an ounce a day, I was determined to try my best to give Alessandra as much of my milk as possible, so I started pumping every three hours.  Each time I pumped there was a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. With each extra tenth of an ounce that I produced, I was able to cut out a little bit of formula.  Finally, after so many pumping sessions, she was getting more of my milk than formula!
It has been very exhausting staying dedicated to the regular pumping and feeding sessions but it is so worth it to see Alessandra satisfied- to see her gaining weight, sleeping well and at generally at peace.  Now that Alessandra's food intake is straightened out, everything else - pooping, sleep, weight gain - fell into place.