So I've been a little busy over the last year and have let my new blogging hobby fall to the side. A lot has happened since my previous post. I just saw that I have a draft of my birth story I was writing but never finished it so it was never posted. I think I will keep that one as a draft for now unless someone REALLY wants to know my birth story. Anywho, I had a beautiful baby boy who will be 1 year old in just a few weeks! The time has FLOWN by but I am glad that I've been able to be with Benjamin through his developments. I lost my job while on maternity leave and we saw that as a sign that I should stay home with the baby and finish school. I'll give a little recap of the past year to get you up to speed. Benjamin was born on August 16th, 2012 at 12:40am weighing 7 lbs and 7 ozs and was 21" long. He was perfect! I decided to try breastfeeding him and it went well at first. I had some issues and resorted to using a nipple shield to nurse and after failed attempts of trying to wean him from the shield, we are still using it today, 11 1/2 months later. I was embarrassed about having to use it at first because I thought that I wasn't actually "breastfeeding" but he still received my milk so what's the big
deal if I used a nipple shield or not?!?!?! We started him on solids (oatmeal) when he was around 4 months old since he has good head control. He took to solids really well and continues to eat like a champ. Which is good in some ways but it really cut into breastfeeding quite a bit. Benjamin has consistently been ahead of meeting his milestones. He started teething around 2 1/2 - 3 months and got his first two teeth at 4 1/2 months. Then he started teething some more and got two more teeth and then it happened again! He has 6 teeth now and I believe is working on getting some more. Needless to say, I haven't been getting much sleep the past year as he seems to be pretty sensitive to teething, developmental milestones, and growth spurts! He started sitting up on his own around 4 months I believe. Crawling at 6 months, cruising at 8 months and took his first steps at 10 months! Looking back, the first 6 months were really hard for me. I imagined that everything would be wonderful and easy and I would be overjoyed with happiness but IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL. I didn't feel like Benjamin knew I was his mother since he seemed to take to Bill a lot better then me. I wasn't his "go-to" person for comfort. He didn't want to cuddle, didn't want to nurse, and I questioned myself several times on whether or not this was normal or if I was "different" for not automatically feeling happy about my baby. I knew I loved him but didn't feel like I was "in love" with him the way I "should have been". It was hard emotionally. What was worse was that I didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to about these things. Of course I talked to Bill but since he's not a mother, it's a little difficult for him to relate. He did the best he could but what I needed was another mother. On the other side, I was also scared to talk to anyone about how I was feeling because I thought I was a bad mother of having these negative feelings. But around 6 or 7 months, Benjamin began being more interactive and was able to show more affection and started to give me signs that he knew who I was and that he loved me. Now at 11 1/2 months, you can usually find him holding my pants leg and following me around the apartment, even in the bathroom. I'm still not sure if he loved me all along and I just didn't see the signs or if I had to "earn" his love after a traumatic delivery but whatever the reason, at 11 1/2 months I know he loves me and I'm his #1 gal :) We are gearing up to celebrate his first birthday at the park where he'll have cake for the first time! Hopefully he likes my carrot cake! Til next time....
