My nephew Ian was born this morning. He's a doll. It's only been 9.5 months, but I'd already forgotten just what it was like to hold a newborn. *love*
His mom is doing great, exhausted of course. They seem to be doing well with breastfeeding so far, which makes me happy. It makes me reflect on how hard it seemed for me to start breastfeeding in the beginning, and I realized that the difference between myself and my friend is that she was remarkably calm. I was not. For some reason, I felt this crazy pressure to breastfeed right from the beginning, compounded by the lactation ladies being bewildered by the difficulties I was having, and the delivery room nurse giving me a nipple shield right off the bat because "my nipples were too flat." On top of my usual need to be perfect and thus be really hard on myself, the nurses didn't really set me up for success.
And tonight, going into the recovery room and holding that little boy, swaying with him and patting his back and soothing him when he started to cry, I realized how much I've grown since that first day. I have confidence now. I may not always know what I'm doing when it comes to getting her to sleep through the night or eat green vegetables, but being back with a newborn again reminded me just how much more I do know now, and it gave me hope. If I can just maintain that confidence, and steal some of my friend's calm, there's not much I won't be able to do.
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