Avoidable Anxieties

I have had a breakthrough. An "ah ha" moment.  Quite encouraging actually. And it all begins with another trip to the hospital. Not for me, of course. Nor for Addie or Eric. A friend of ours had a baby so I went to visit to meet the cute new bundle of joy and discovered what should have been for me, the obvious.

All of these questions I am about to ask apply to those with full term, healthy babies:
How many of you mamas, pumped every few hours while in the hospital?
How many of you mamas were told that you couldn't leave your house with your baby for 8 weeks?
How many of you mamas were told by doctors that if your baby got sick would immediately be put into the hospital with a spinal tap?
How many of you mamas were told that you must start out by feeding your baby with a syringe (of breastmilk) and could not exclusively rely on nursing yet?

I ask these questions because I was told every single one of them. I delivered at 36 weeks 5 days. Two days shy of full term. My baby was 4lbs 12oz. Yes, she was small but healthy. She didn't have to go in the NICU and was allowed to go home with us two days later. She was fully developed, in every way. YET, I was scared to death of this tiny person. I was fearful that she wouldn't eat well from me. I was fearful to leave my house with her. I was so cautious about who I let hold her and was a hand sanitizer nazi...because of everything I was told while in the hospital.

Anyways, when I went to the hospital to visit my friend, I noticed she didn't have a pump beside her bed. I was confused. When I was in the hospital, I pumped around the clock. Immediately, she told me that she never pumped (with her first) unless she wanted to store extra milk for date nights. Huh? This was not my experience. She also was never told to wait EIGHT weeks to take her baby somewhere.

I realized that they treated me and my baby as if she were a severe preemie. Which is interesting, because again, yes she was small, and yes I delivered preterm (2 DAYS!), but she was fully developed in every way. I believe many of my fears and anxieties about this tiny baby was completely unnecessary and could have been avoided. 

Hopefully, now that I realize that my experience was not normal, next time I will be a little less overwhelmed :)