Feel like a failure as a mom, it’s only been 5 days
Had my baby via C-section on 9 April. Because she was a C-section baby, she had fluid in her lungs after birth that she couldn’t get out so she was transferred to neonatal unit. I feel like that was my fault because I chose to have an elective section.
Jump forward 5 days. I still have no milk supply despite double pumping like 4x per day. My baby is off the ventilator, but there’s talk of putting her back on because she’s not at a high enough saturation level (92% instead of 94+). She’s also not independently eating because she refuses to wake up and either put my boob in her mouth or take a bottle, so they’re tube-feeding her.
Now, she’s my first. I want to hold her all the time because she’s my first and because I want skin to skin and because skin to skin is supposed to help my milk supply (except right now I just feel like a fucking cow). My husband had skin to skin with her last night when her oxygen was low but when I took her, her oxygen level went right back to where it should be (96-100). So I come in when I’m awake and available and pick her up to hold her for those reasons. Then around meal time, I undress her to try and get her to wake up a bit. All these things make sense right?
Well, the midwife basically told my husband while I was sitting there asleep and attached to the pump that I shouldn’t hold her as much and that skin to skin is important but like, so is keeping her warm. And I’ve checked her temp. She’s hot when I take her blankets off and I put a blanket on when she’s cold and my husband even agreed with me today she was warm.
I just feel awful because I feel like I can’t do anything right. If we were at home, it would be just me and him and everything would be fine. But I’m so scrutinised here. I just feel like such a failure.
Thanks for reading.
