Shields, a Syringe, and Jaundice

Meet Shaina. Before having her daughter, Mabrey, this mommy had the typical, "I've got this all figured out," attitude. But to her surprise, once her little peanut was finally here she was flooded with I Guess Im Due moments. Enjoy her story in her own words below...

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Before my daughter was born it was settled, I was going to breastfeed. Duh, it's less expensive, and "so easy," just plop her on the ol’ boob and wham bam thank you ma'am. Could I have been anymore wrong?

December 16th a day late (and a dollar short my dad would add) Mabrey Grace Horrell was born 7 lbs and 19 inches long. After the amazing midwives at Kennestone hospital cleaned us up, the lactation consultant promptly arrived to help me feed Mabrey for the first time. These people must not know me very well I thought, I don't need help, I never need help, people need my help (not to be confused with being conceited, more less bull headed). Anyway, I bit my tongue and soon became very grateful and accepting of the much-needed help.

Of course, we immediately had issues; momma had inverted nipples, what the hell is that anyway? Apparently my nipples cave in and don't poke out, making is very hard for a baby to latch, sorry if that is TMI, but you lose a lot of tact when you are sitting spread eagle with a baby being pushed out of well, you know. Anyway, a nipple shield was the magic solution, or so we thought. Mabrey was born at 12:45 AM December 16th, since my birthday was the very next day, December 17th, I selfishly conned the doctors into letting us go home the next day, I may or may not have mastered the art of persuasion and by may or may not, I totally have.

Everything was peachy. My parents from Ohio made it in time for the birth and were at our house waiting to welcome us home, signs and all. Two days pass and my parents tell me my baby looks yellow, ‘psshh’ what do they know??

I was born 28 years ago, they haven't been around babies in a long time, and surely I would know if something was wrong with my child. Well, just to make sure, I called our pediatrician and bumped up our follow up appointment for this adorable little peanut and in we went. A flood full of emotions/hormones went through my mind and body when they came back to tell me my kid was losing too much weight, malnourished and we needed to supplement her with formula immediately, oh and my mom was right (dammit)!

She was yellow, hello jaundice, and worst parent of the year award goes to yours truly. Well the next thing you know we are feeding our kid with a syringe and she is sucking that stuff down like it was going out of style. The moral of the story, in my eyes was this; I starved my kid and clearly was not ready for this parenting business. Oh did I mention I forgot to bring her diaper bag to the first appointment. If you didn't know, when they weigh the babies you have to take their, most often dirty, diaper off to weigh them and if you don't have a diaper bag, clearly you don't have a spare diaper to put on the child.... Well, I Guess I'm Due.

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