End of Journey?

Humaira is 4 months and 12 days old today.
So far she has been exclusively breastfeeding. I am not sure until when I will be able to hold her from formula milk. I am struggling to pump milk for her, besides my struggle to handle her active character. In the end, we bought a small tin of FM just to have some peace at mind worrying that I can’t pump enough milk for her and she will be hungry. So far, the small tin that cost us almost RM30 is still there for about a week.. Not intact, not open yet, but has been eyeing by Nenek Humaira who happened to visit us here, and did not went back to my hometown until end of the week with us.. Feeling some sadness thinking that i have to mix her meal with my milk and formula milk, but i have no option for that.

It never came across my mind before that I will be facing challenges in wanting to exclusively breastfeed my child, internally and externally. One day I knew I was pregnant, and when I felt like I was quite stabile from the morning sickness I surfed the net to find info on how to handle life after delivering the baby. Overwhelmed with too much info that I never knew before, I was almost having panicked attack when realizing I have 5 months to understand, absorb and apply all that. That is when I understand what it means by susu ibu. OK, u may laugh at me for did not understand its meaning in the first place (before I was married and in my early pregnancy) because I thought that susu ibu means susu yg ibu2 minum (blank.. how did I get the idea?) Perhaps because I am used to the term ‘susu badan’ (or in my husband’s hometown is referred to ‘susu dada’) .

Things were moving very fast for me, from getting to know my husband, meeting both parents, merisik, preparing for the wedding, getting married and pregnant which occured in less than a year. Time was fully utilized in my case. On handling the milk for the baby already made me dizzy.. the bottles need to be strealized, the milk, expressed milk, techniques for breastfeed..bla bla bla.. then here comes with cloth diaper, baby rash, items for baby, clothing, hospital, doctors....and on and on... i never really pay much attention to any post on these things previously wrote by my friends as i thought i'll learn it later or perhaps not within a short period of time.. God knows better.

Now i understand the needs for a support group for breastfeeding mothers.
I am lucky that my husband stands next to me and support me well so far.
But now i am wondering..if the journey is going to end soon?

hurm...

These three months have been a very hectic months for me.. I am still adjusting my life with the new person in our life and new responsibility. At the same time, i was trying to cope with the long abandon tasks in the office, my master's class and now needs to complete two thesis within a limited period of time. Not to mention the household chores that seems like forever to complete. Perhaps I'm in too much stress that the week after raya haji my milk expressed dropped from a good 8-oz per pumping session to 5-oz.

Then came the baby side of story.. that she is too attached too me, wanting me to always be next to her at all time. i read in one of the parenthood article that suggesting writes about everyday parenting life and feeling although if i think that the feelings are not good. i don't know whether i should or should not follow the suggestion. but i think motherhood is quite tough for me. (huuhuh baru anak sorang.... dah cenggini.. kalah org anak tiga empat ni.. )

She seems to be so adorable when she smiles, or laughs.. when she did not make any fuss.. when she sleeps so peaceful. but when it comes to about to sleeping time, she will throw her tantrum that makes me do not know what else to do. we need to rock her to sleep, on our hands.. she even wanting me to feed her while stand up and rock her. so that is three requests at one time? the case is even worst when we used 'buaian', the thing that almost makes me be not in a good mood with the parent.. i have to admit that i was really under pressured not to apply the normal ordinary ways of upbringing the child in our tradition/community. i never thought it is going to be this difficult to make it understand that we want to raise our child in our own way. the only thing that i am still manage to hold up to now is to exclusively breastfeeding my baby...

not to mention that she will be ok at one day, and not ok the following days. she seems to be good when i see her today, and suddenly crying non stop , requests my full attention when i want to complete my assignments or when i thought of fulfilling my pumping sessions. in the end, when she rests herself quietly i'll be too tired for anything and have myself a sleep too..

despite of at times when i feel like putting her under the pillow because of the irritating crying sounds, or hopeless when we do not know what else to do as everything has been in check - the pampers, the room temperature, the body temperature, the hunger, the usually rocking... when i feel like crying to see her crying and i am not able to do anything to calm her down.. thinking again that perhaps she is also not feeling comfortable and still adjusting herself in our world.. we just told ourselves to be patience about it.. and yes, i said a lot of prays in my heart whenever i try to calm her down especially during my confinement.. takut gila meroyan plak..

when i think again my journey with her in my tummy, the kicking, the movement.. when we come back from work and see how happy she is to seeing us again... when we wake up in the morning to see her sleeping or smiling next to us.. when she tries to talk to us with her 'agugu', 'ottei', uu, aa sounds.. then i guess it is not a big deal to handle her. at least she does at times making our life merrier. hehe

some people said that when you have a tough time during the early days of the child, that child will be a good and easy to handle child when she/he grows up.. aminn.. harap2 nye la kan kan kan..