Today marks the official 4 week mark with Olive and I'm not going to lie, it hasn't necessarily been an easy go of things.  She's one of those newborns who insists on nursing all the time and will only sleep if positioned justso on mommy's chest.  Should I make the unfortunate mistake of moving ever so slightly or  needing to go to the bathroom, eat, or just stand up and all hell breaks loose.

Maybe her brother was this way and nature, through her brilliance in making sure the species survives, wiped any memory of those first four weeks clean from my brain as part of a larger plan to make sure we keep breeding.  I don't know.  All I know is that I'm tired, cranky and really really looking for a break.

Which means in a moment of weakness I turned to the Internet for some support.  This particular moment of weakness came at about 3:30 am and while Olive was on hour 6 of a nurse-a-thon.  Six solid hours.  Of nursing.  I swear to the goddess and ohmygod was I done.  This can't be right, I thought.  Something MUST be wrong.  And if not, there's no way I can sit here for a second longer with this person attached to me.

So I did it.  I called Kelly in tears and gave him the order.  Make the baby a bottle and get me out of here.

It sounds reasonable enough, and in hindsight, it was.  But as I turned to my trusty Internet for reassurance that a pinch of formula after 6 hours of nursing is not the end of the world and would not tank my efforts at breast feeding I found just the opposite-dire warnings of having those 2 ounces materialize in a total rejection of the breast.  Hysterical predictions that those few ounces would sufficiently decrease my milk supply so as to render breast feeding a total bust.  Recommendations that I just try a "nurse-in" for the next couple days-- a "vacation" where I sit in bed, nurse round-the-clock (I'm serious--clearly this was from a woman without other children and any sense of sanity) and of course, the judgment.  Oh the judgment.

It will probably come as little shock that none of the pearl-clutching materialized at all.  Olive still prefers to nurse (and I might add, nurse A LOT), she's growing at a rapid clip, and all accounts indicate my milk supply is just fine thankyouverymuch.  But that hasn't saved me from bouts of teary-eyed guilt that the 2 ozs she gets here and there, simply to give me a sanity break or, godforbid, a nap, means that I've failed in one of the most fundamental jobs of mothering a newborn.

Finally it was the sane words of a dear friend that brought me back to reality.  And for that I'm eternally grateful  And it was a good reminder that I need to suit up, to polish that armor and be ready for battle.  It's been a while since I was in the game but, just this first month alone, it's obvious that the mommy wars continue and, with Olive, I've clearly re-enlisted.