Suckle THIS, smartypants!

Since I'd gone in earlier in the day I called the nursery at around midnight last night to check on Ms. S before going to bed. The call went really well until the end, when things degenerated for me. Here's how it went.

NURSE: She wants to suckle.

ME: Oh, I know. We had a great session with the lactation consultant today. She's really getting it.

NURSE: No, she needs to do it more than that!

ME: Well, I try to do it every day. It doesn't always work out.

NURSE: Every day! More times a day! If you don't she won't nurse later on. She won't know how!

ME: (Getting a bit defensive.) She had an eye exam today. She was too exhausted for more than the once.*

NURSE: Well she really needs to learn this. More times a day!

Now I am all agitated by the thought that due to my negligence my daughter will never really learn to nurse, even though that's bullshit of the highest order and we'd made real progress earlier in the day. I was feeling great about it, really encouraged by the experience and glad that the lactation consultant had helped me out so much and now I am trying to hang on to that and not feel like I'm failing her in some way.

To me the true point is not that she's breastfeeding, even if I've talked a lot about how much I want to be able to do so with her. The truly important thing is that she's getting my breastmilk and the how of it getting inside her is secondary. If she never takes to nursing and we have to bottle-feed her while I continue to pump then that's how it'll be. Ideally I want her to do both so that Andrew can also feed her and so that we can bottle-feed her when it's less convenient to nurse. I am not stuck on her ONLY breastfeeding and nothing else. I think it would be irrational to feel that way, and potentially crazy-making. I don't want to set myself and Shaughnessy up for disappointment and difficulty. I just want to do what works best and makes us both comfortable

I am doing my reading on all this, believe me, and even if it takes time the majority of babies, preemie or otherwise, figure it out and end up doing fine on only nursing, or a combination of both. I wasn't even planning to breastfeed in the first place and had fully expected to formula-feed her with bottles but the fact of her prematurity threw a wrench into those plans. So, this has been a pretty major adjustment of expectations for me and that's probably why I'm pretty flexible about the idea of bottle vs. breast since either is a vehicle for her to drink my breastmilk. She'll be in my arms, alive, not dead due to undiagnosed preeclampsia. I'd rather wake up every day happy about those things than stress out about whether she'll be a perfect breastfeeder!

* The eye exams that the doctors do to check for ROP are very traumatizing and uncomfortable for the babies, so after they have them they're usually very exhausted and out of it for the rest of the day. They tend to sleep more and be more fussy when awake, so things like lick and sniffs aren't usually all that successful.