Guilt. Sleep. Thrills.

It has been one month of life with baby Button! Finally some pics to share with you.

Guilty. Typically, motherhood is picturized as a baby feeding at a mother's breast. Breastfeeding is praised to the skies and the virtues of a mother who can feed her baby with plenty of milk are written everywhere. In my case, I had a trouble-free picture-perfect pregnancy... I imagined that I would be a fount of milk with my baby growing up on the abundant milk that I generated. The bible that most people follow "What to expect in the First Year" talks of storing extra milk and the right techniques to breastfeed etc...innocently, after reading it, I imagined I would have so much extra milk that my baby would be able to bathe in it! In the first harrowing week, Button woke up every hour to feed (and whimpered for more after I was done). We made sure that he latched on properly, the lighting was right, the bed was okay etc. Finally, we went to the doc in panic. I was exhausted and stressed out and wondered what was wrong. My pediac gave a simple solution - "Be practical, he is hungry, give him a top feed" (read formula milk for the non-parents!). I was devastated. I felt like I had failed some important entrance exam by not having enough milk. It took me two weeks to rationalize that it is more important to keep the baby healthy, happy and on combination feed(formula and mother's milk), than to keep him hungry and on mother's milk alone. Now he is a lot more settled, sleeps a lot more and funnily I seem to be producing a lot more milk, although not enough to exlusively feed on my milk alone!

You never know when guilt as an emotion catches up with you. I always thought that being aware of one's actions would remove guilt from one's life. In this case, much as I rationalized, books, elders in the family and self created notions (not to mention ignorance) pushed me to this negative emotion. Its a downward spiral after guilt settles in. Thanks to an understanding mom and mom-in-law (who repeatedly quoted the Gita that I should try and leave the fruits of labor to the Big Man above) that I pushed aside my prejudice. Sigh! So much for being an Sec A+ well educated yuppie mom.

Oh, my mom has been plying me with milk- lehiyam (a south indian Chavanprash kind of concoction), garlic boiled in milk (UGH!), Satavri powder, Saabudana kheer, Mother's Horlicks and Lactonic (a grand total of a litre of milk everyday). Am gagging!

Sleepy.The one luxury I miss now is... no, not movies or martinis....but blessed sleep! For someone who loves her zzz time, Button is a revelation. How he manages to wake up without an alarm clock every 3 hours is a mystery! It is forward and onward to a routine of me feed - bottle feed - burp - change nappy - continue bottle feed - change nappy - burp - rock to sleep!

Thrilled.He smiled at my husband yesterday (he completed one month yesterday!) His first social smile. Nazar na lage but oh, my heart warmed to him and I was thrilled to bits. His smile just lights up the room and our lives! He has been regularly smiling at my husband and my mom ever since... still hasn't at me, but what the heck, I live on hope and all the milk my mom feeds me!

Footnote: Am off to my hometown for a month just to miss the messy Mumbai monsoon. More blogging from home.