The best laid plans...

I was going to have vaginal, drug-free birth, breast feed, and cloth diaper. I was not going to have an epidural, be induced, bottle feed or babywear.

I am a crazy planner (read: control freak), so of course this is the way things would go, right? Absolutely not! My daughter was born a week after my EDD. To give you an idea of my control-freakishness I was mad that my baby wasn't on time, especially since I did IVF. I really felt she should have been born exactly 40 weeks from my IVF procedure. My water broke but I never went into "active" labor so after 24 hours, my doctor decided I should be induced. Strike 1 to my plan. After several hours of contractions (and not dilating), I contemplated telling my husband that I was never going to do this again. I had an epidural instead. Strike 2. I still didn't progress and then I got an infection so I had to have a C-section. Strike 3 - and I hadn't even let Labor and Delivery yet.

The C-Section went smoothly, although I did grab the nurses when they rolled me onto the table because I was convinced they were going to drop me on the OR floor. However, my daughter had to go to the Special Care Nursery, because we both had a fever when she was born. They put her IV antibiotics.

I wasn't able to breast feed. Despite numerous visits from lactation consultants in the hospital my daughter wouldn't latch. I figured we would get there and I kept trying. The nurses brought me a breast pump and encouraged me to pump to up my milk production. Meanwhile, the nurses in the Special Care Nursery insisted that my daughter would have to be supplemented with bottles because her kidneys needed to be flushed due to the antibiotics. So she got bottles.

I found out that my daughter had developmental hip dysplasia and that she would have to be in a harness for at least a couple of months while her hips sockets grew around her hip bones.

I handled most of this really well while I was in the hospital, but by the time I got home, I kept thinking, maybe I wasn't meant to have children. I couldn't nurse my baby despite hourly attempts, she was in a brace and she spent most of the day crying. I never really understood postpartum depression until I got home. On the rare occasions that she wasn't crying,
I checked websites for post partum symptoms and solutions. I would have gone to a baby group, but I couldn't take her because I was so embarrassed that I couldn't nurse her and that she cried all day. It was a scary dark time that no one wants to hear about from a new mom. You're supposed to be elated.

Today I have a happy bottle fed four and a half month old. Turns out she had a milk protein allergy that was making her cry all of time. She is out of her brace and her hips are stable. And she may even like me just a little bit. So just when I barely have it together, I am starting IVF all over again. Today is CD 4 and it is no less scary the second time. It is procedure that involves lots of waiting and a lot of strangers (well they aren't really strangers anymore since I have been going to the same clinic for over 2 years) involved in your reproductive cycle. Last time I was lucky, who knows what this round will bring.

In the meantime, I have my little successes, I do cloth diaper and though I said I wouldn't I babywear (even while I am in heels) because it makes her happy. And I am by no means complaining but I am not going to lie, being a mom isn't easy ya'll