The Guilt Of Not Being Able To Breastfeed.

  It has been fourteen years and six months since I had my first child, it has been two years and ten months since I had my fifth and last child. With my first I tried to breastfeed, for the first month it seemed like he was constantly hungry, like he was starving. I was young and didn't know about lactation consultants and support groups so I quit and started giving him formula. At the time I thought it was weird that I never leaked, I never had any boob pain, even when I stopped breast feeding.

  With my second I decided to try again. Before I had her I read a few books on breastfeeding to hopefully help me make it work this time. A few hours after she was born she was rushed to the special care nursery because she had almost died choking on spit up. She was in there for 5 days. She wasn't able to be fed for a few days but I still gave it a shot. When she came home we went to Baby's R Us and bought a very nice, very expensive pump because it was recommended to build up my milk supply after telling the lactation consultant at the hospital about my previous attempt at breastfeeding. So we go home and again it seems as though my baby is starving. The lactation consultant said she was latching on good so it wasn't that. I would pump and in those first couple of weeks I would be lucky to get 2oz's in 30min's of pumping, and no that isn't just one breast that was combined. After a couple more weeks I couldn't even get an ounce of milk. After trying a few of the things the lactation consultant suggested, still no change. I put her on formula and again like before I had never leaked the whole time and never got engorged after switching her to formula.

It was a that point I realized my body had failed me. I had failed my babies. I never tried again with the rest of my babies. And I never got those great big boobs that is a plus to pregnancy and I also never got engorged or had very much pain. When I was pregnant with Isabella, before we knew about her condition, I talked with my NP and she agreed that my milk doesn't come in, I did still have some hope up until that point that maybe the other 3 times were flukes. With Isabella I did have a little tenderness but that was it. I always thought it odd that the one baby Indidn't have a choice in is the one I had a little bit of pain. Like another sick joke my body was playing on me.

Even though I would have breastfeed if I could I still feel guilty that I used formula. I had never heard of breast milk banks until my youngest was over year old. My brain knows there wasn't anything I could do differently but my heart still feels that guilt.

I think what makes it worse is that breast feeding is pushed in your face everywhere. Which is a good thing, people need to be educated on it and it's benefits, but for people like me it's just a constant reminder of what we couldn't give our babies. They have posters covering doctors office walls, you go to WIC and there are posters and pamphlet's everywhere, I even saw a poster on a metro train in D.C., then I come home and see it all over my facebook.

Most of the time it doesn't bother me on facebook. But sometimes when I see a status some wrote about breastfeeding and everyone comments how great of a mother she is for doing it, it just hurts. I know no one says stuff like that to hurt people but when I read it all I can think is I guess that makes me a shitty mother because I couldn't do that for my babies. A breastfeeding mother posts about problems she is having and everyone comments with supporting words. Where are the supporting words for those of us who can't or even those that choose not to? Just because we can't breastfeed or *gasp* actually choose to give our babies formula doesn't mean we don't need support words letting us know that we too are doing the best we can for our babies.

Then you have what some of us call the breastfeeding Nazi's. They are the ones that go around talking crap about everyone that doesn't breastfeed. They are the ones that will put you down even after you explain that you didn't have a choice it the matter. You tell them it was either let your baby starve or feed them formula. They don't care, they tell you you should have tried harder and I have even been told that I am lying that there is no way a body wouldn't produce beast milk. I have literally been told that I am a horrible mother for giving up and not trying harder, yes because by trying hard it would automatically make my body change into a milk machine.

Will this guilt ever go away? Will I ever come to terms with the fact that my body didn't do what it was supposed to? Will I ever be able to see a poster or a status update without that nagging guilt coming back to the surface? I pray that one day I will be able to be okay with it.

From all the studies on how great breastfeeding is for babies I guess I am lucky how healthy mine turned out on formula. That does bring me some comfort. Between my 4 living children they have had a whopping 6 ear infections combined, yes combined between them all. They are all very smart and hardly ever get sick. My second daughters medical records were retired because she didn't see a doctor for two years because she never got sick enough. I know you are like what you didn't even take her in for a yearly appointment?? Well back then, or maybe it was just that military hospitals practice, they told me at her 2 year apt she didn't need to be seen again until she was 5 for any shots or physicals. Luckily now that isn't practiced anymore, those are the ages they need to be seen to catch most developmental problems. Anyways I guess my point it is does bring me some comfort that the formula feeding didn't cause any problems in my babies.

Before I go I want to say I have NOTHING against anyone that breastfeeds. This was not an attack at anyone who breastfeeds, or anyone who talks about or posts about on facebook. And just a FYI I also have NOTHING against anyone who chooses to formula feed. This is all about my own feelings of guilt and sometimes not feeling like the best mother because of not being able to give them what everyone says is the best thing you can give your baby, breast milk.

Kroger Skillet Meals

As most of my friends know I am all about deals and saving money. I also love to cook, well most of the time. This time of year I can start feeling overwhelmed and finding the time to cook can be hard. thanks to BzzAgent and Kroger I was able to get a meal for 5 on the table in 10 minutes! Yes you read that right, 10 minutes!!

They let me try out a Kroger skillet meal, Kroger frozen garlic bread and a Kroger salad kit. I picked the Penne with Grilled Chicken Skillet meal. I was shocked at how fast it was ready and how great it tasted! I am NOT a fan of frozen meals, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Makes me want to try out all the Kroger Skillet Meals! My husband even said we should keep the freezer stocked with them for nights we just don't have the time or just don't feel like cooking.

The Galic bread was good. I was surprised at how well it was for a store brand. Kroger brands just keep surprising me. I LOVE garlic and LOVE LOVE LOVE garlic bread so I am pretty picky when it comes to it. I have to say from now on it is the Kroger brand garlic bread I will be buying.

I have honestly never bought a salad kit before. I have bought bagged salads just not the full kit. I picked up the Cesar Salad one and it was great! The lettuce was fresh and crispy, the dresses tasted great and the croutons were crunchy, just like I like them. It much easier having all the items together like that and just tossing them all in a bowl. The Salad kits will be added to my grocery shopping trip from now on.

Here is a picture of our yummy meal tonight!

Thanks again to BzzAgent and Kroger for giving me the chance to try these items for free and for showing me an easy but tasteful way to feed my family when I need something quick and easy!

Fair Trade Coffee

I LOVE coffee, and I mean I REALLY LOVE coffee! I usually drink 3 or more cups a day of it. You don't want to come near me if I haven't had my coffee yet, lol. Even my husband knows this, he now wakes me up in the morning with a cup of coffee in his hand for me. Yes I know I have the best husband ever :)

I have never really thought about where my coffee comes from. I usually just enjoy the taste and that little bit of energy I get from it. All that changed with the BzzAgent Fair Trade campaign. Thank to it and Kelly Clarkson I now know all about the Fair Trade Coffee and will only be buying it. Go to this link, Choosefairtrade.com, to learn all about it. If you are like me you will be surprised about what you learn.

Thanks BzzAgent for teaching me about this and for the free fair trade certified kcups from Green Mountain Coffee.

Postive

I have been trying to stay positive but some days it is just hard. I try to remind myself that we have a roof over our heads, food on our table, and are alive and healthy. I am thankful for these things but some days I want more. I want friends. I want a life. I want to be more than a high school drop out stay at home mom. I just don't know where to start.

Most days I am lucky to just get out of my pajama's. Heck if I am honest on rare occasions I am just lucky to get out of bed. I was talking with Dwayne yesterday morning and realized I have no idea what I want to be when I "grow" up.

When I was younger I wanted to be a teacher, but those dreams have long gone. I thought about being a nurse but it just doesn't feel right. Then I thought about being a Doula since the reason I wanted to go into nursing was to work in labor and delivery. But Doula's are more about natural child birth and breast feeding. Which I have nothing against but I also have nothing against an epidural or formula feeding. I have thought about jobs that work with grieving parents but not sure what those would be. I know I want to go into a field to that works with and helps people, just haven't figured out what field that is yet.

I just feel lost. When Dwayne was in the Army my job was taking care of the kids, the house and supporting him in his career. And even though I am still doing the same thing now, in a sense, it just feels so different. I think a lot of it has to do with not having friends. In the Army lifestyle it was easier to find other wives to be friends with. Ones who were also SAHM's. I just miss my friends so much. This move has been the hardest of them all. I think this time it being our choice has made it harder. Before the Army told us when and where we were moving, we didn't have much of a say in it. This time we chose to leave our friends behind.

There have been a few times since our move that I question if we did the right thing. I remind myself of why we did it, but when I am sitting home day after day with no other social interaction besides my kids and husband it gets easy to start questioning myself. There were two main reasons we moved out here and I am having a hard time figuring out how to go about doing those things.

This change from Army life to civilian life has been hard. Hard on us financially, emotionally and even hard on our marriage at times. It has been scary and uncertain, and I am not good with uncertainty. I am a control freak so I admit it is hard to just put this all in God's hands and trust him. I am trying. I pray that I can get comfortable doing that and learn to trust that he brought us here for a reason and not stress over things so much. My heart knows this is true, it is my mind I have to convince.

Explanation

So after recieving a Facebook message this morning I feel the need to explain some things. I never realized some of the things I said could upset people. Yes we got Toys for Tots/Angel Tree for the kids. Yes we got them each a gift from Operation Homefront and yes without our knowledge my husband's unit bought our kids some presents, along with some other families. And yes we did get an advance from H&R block to buy them some presents.

Here is the reason WHY we got the advance and bought them some presents. First off you don't get a lot of money with the advance. We got a few hundered dollars but out of that we had to buy the ball tickets which weren't cheap and we also paid on a bill. So what was left yes I did use for black friday to buy some gifts. With the Angel Tree/Toys for Tots you never know what you are going to get. If your kids didn't get picked for the Angel Tree then you are going to get one present for each kid. And NO I am not complaining about that, I am very thankful for even one present. And this year all my kids didn't get picked for the Angel Tree and the ones that did get picked didn't all get the same amount. Whoever the nice family was that picked Katie went crazy and got lots of stuff, Jonathan and Wesley got a few things and Hannah got nothing. How would it look Christmas morning when Katie and Jonathan got lots of things but poor Hannah has two things between Toys for Tots and Operation homefront? As adults we undesrstand how it works and are thankful for even one thing but kids don't see things that way. They would be asking why Santa got so in so more than me. I also had to use he advance for Dwayne's work secret santa gifts, our party white elephant gifts and gifts for family members.

We also have 3 kids Birthday's in January, one on the 4th right after Christmas. So we can use those presents we bought with the advance for that. So the presents we buy with the advance can be a back up for Christmas if we need them, which we did for Hannah or birthday presents, which they will be for Katie and Jonathan.

Yes we did buy Jonathan a 3DS and no that did not come out of the advance, that would have been almost all of the advance if we had, lol. Many months ago before my husbands check was being garnished we bought a tablet. Well last month Jonathan was running with the tablet and fell down and broke it. We had bought the warrenty thingy from Best Buy and since they didn't have that same tablet in stock we got a gift card for the amount of the tablet. That is what we used to buy the 3DS. That was the only thing he was asking for for Christmas and I knew we weren't going to get that from Toys for Tots/Angel Tree.

And yes we did buy Katie an electric scooter. That is the one thing she was asking for. I saw a generic one on sale at K-Mart for $80 awhile ago and put it on layaway because again I knew we weren't going to get that from Toys for Tots/Angel Tree.

I truthfully feel like how we do Christmas is no ones business but apparently some people have their panites in a bunch over the fact that we bought toys along with getting assitance. Hopefully this will help straighten out their panties, if not I don't care. I am not going to feel guilty for getting help at Christmas for my kids. And we had NO idea about what his unit was doing, they did not do this in the previous years we have been here., just needed to clarify that.  Now I am on to enjoy this Holiday, and hope that everyone reading this has a Very Merry Christmas!

Herpes

Yes you read that rigth,the title of this blog post is Herpes, lol. A couple weeks after coming home from Dwayne's Basic Graduation I had sores all in my mouth. I head off to the urgent care clinic to get it taken care of because I wasn't able to eat or drink anything. They look at them and tell me I have herpes, I explained to the doctor that my husband was gone and that I hadn't done anything to get herpes. I explained about going for his basic but that he was also with only men so I doubt he did anything, she just said you would be surprised what guys do. I sat in complete shock. I go home and write Dwayne a not so very nice letter asking him what in the world he did during Basic to give me herpes when I was there for his graduation. I am thinking some pretty bad things, especially because he was in an all male basic training, lol.

A day or two later I get a call from him and I of course go off on him pretty much saying and asking the same things I did in the letter. He swears up and down he has no idea what I am talking about that he didn't do anything while at basic. I had done nothing while he was gone so of course I didn't believe him and just knew he gave me herpes.

About a week later the mouth sores had just gotten worse so I head off to urgent care again. This time I got a different doctor. Right away she knew it wasn't herpes. She had looked over my list of meds I was on and knew it was one of the new asthma meds my new doctor at Fort Eustis had given me. My new doctor had failed to mention that I was supposed to rinse my mouth out after using this inhaler. So that was what was causing these sores. A few days later after doing swishes in my mouth with orange juice and now rinsing after this new inhaler the sores were going away.

A couple days after that I get another call from Dwayne. And yes I was groveling, lol. I explained to him what was really wrong and kept apologizing for thinking the worst about him. But seriously how could I not with what the first doctor told me, lol. Now of course we look back and laugh at this, lol.

AIT

For those of you that don't know AIT is like a trade school for the Army. It is where you go after Basic Traning, aka boot camp, to learn about the job you will be doing in the Army. Dwayne ended up picking medic as his job so he headed off to San Antonio for AIT after basic. I don't remember how many weeks it was just know it wasn't long enough for the Army to move us there, lol.  It has to be over a certain number of weeks for the Army to move the family for AIT.

AIT was a very trying time for us as a couple. It started out very similiar to basic, they could only make calls on the weekends. We were good then. After a few weeks they were allowed cell phones on the weekends and then weekend passes where they could go off post for the weekend. Nowadays they are allowed computers and such but back then they weren't allowed.

He got to come home for Christmas, I can't remember how long but I think it was 2 weeks like the normal block leave most military get for Christmas, though it might have been shorter. I remember him being VERY sick for Christmas. You could just look at him and tell he wasn't feeling good. I joked it was my cooking, that he had gotten so used to the army food he couldn't handle real food anymore. I remember like always that time with him home went by way to fast but I knew in a couple months he would be home again and it would be time for us to move away and start his Army career together. I looked forward to that, what was I thinking?? lol

I remember the weekends with him having the passes were very hard for me. I can admit I have trust issues because of previous relationships so it was hard for me to trust him going out to clubs and stayig at hotels without me there making sure he wasn't getting into any trouble. I am sure most of you have heard the saying "helicopter mom" well I am a helicopter wife, lol. So it was a very hard time for me and thinking back on it and I can still feel some of that anxiety I felt during that time.

I can remember during the week him sneaking into the bathroom late at night to call me sometimes during the week, bad Dwayne, lol. They were always very short conversations but I treasured them. During the weekends when he was allowed to call he was usually surrounded by people so we didn't have much privacy for our conversations, not to mention it is kind of hard to talk to your wife while you are getting drunk and getting a lap dance from a stripper, yes I went there, lol.  One of the things I can laugh at now but back then I wanted to reach through the phone and slap him silly, lol.

I remember him being stressed over his tests, if he failed he would be held back and have to start AIT over again. But he passed all his tests with flying colors and from what I understand that is not easy to do. Most people don't realize just how smart he is, he likes to hide it for some reason.

I remember being upset because I couldn't go out for his AIT graduation. We just didn't have the money for the flight and hotel room. I wish I could have been there to support him and show him how proud I was of  him, but he understood. So after many weeks, from Nov to March, he was finished with AIT and while we might have had some battle scars but we survived it as a couple.

I remember being so excited for him to come home and for us to start out this new chapter of our lives at Fort Stewart, Georgia.