It was what I read on the nursery room at RSIA Hermina, Bekasi when I went there with my Die, my Little Rayyan and the nanny. We went there last Saturday, I wanted to meet the lactation counselor to ask her some important questions about breastfeeding. For the past week, my milk was rapidly reducing, and I couldn't figure out why. Some said about my eating disorder or maybe the imbalance of my meal nutrition. But some others said (and this made sense more than the previous one) that I was being too stressful and tensed.
The lactation counselor taught me the basic knowledge about breast milk and breastfeeding. How to breastfeed you baby, the right position in breastfeeding him, how to improve the quantity of the milk and how to be successful in breastfeeding the baby for the WM (working mom) like me.
It is never easy, to successfully and exclusively breastfeeding your baby for six months and then extended it with the supplementary food until he is 2 years old. Many mothers - especially the working moms - give up in breastfeeding and substitute their babies' demand on milk with formulas. From the five pregnant ladies (were) at my office (and all them have become mommies), only me who's still breastfeeding my son exclusively. Two of them gave up and give their babies formulas, and two others combine the breast milk and the formulas to fulfill the babies' need.
And I swear God, ladies and gents... It is so fucking damn HARD to keep my spirit up high and my commitment to give Rayyan exclusive breast milk until he is 6 months. Still 2 months to go and time suddenly runs so.. so.. slow when it comes to survive in the exclusive breastfeeding thingy! First of all, you need your husband there to support you every time, anytime and everywhere you need him. To make your husband supports you, he has to be the breast milk father first. A breast milk father is a father who knows ALL about the importance of breastfeeding and give the baby only his mother's milk until he is six months. And a breast milk father is so damn hard to find, because most fathers assume that all the breastfeeding thing is mothers' stuff, not theirs.
My husband was one of them, the not-breastfeeding father. He didn't know anything about breastfeeding, he gave all this matter to me (because I'm the one who got BREASTS! Oh please...) and when Rayyan started to cry, he said maybe it was because he was hungry and my milk didn't fulfill his need over milk, so he suggested me to buy formulas!
Stupidly, I was being intimidated too deep (noted that my family was also not a breastfeeding family) that I finally gave up with my spirit and gave my Rayyan formulas :'(. It lasted for almost 3 weeks until I realized of how stupid I am for being too selfish to myself and not taking Rayyan as my priority. I chose an easy way without concerning about his healthiness. Ever since, I directly stopped giving him formulas and collected my self-confidence once more that I am able and MUST be able to breastfeed my baby exclusively until he is six months.
Alhamdulillah, I could do re-lactation to Rayyan with no difficulties. He was so clever and never whined to have some more milk that what I could give to him. And Alhamdulillah, apparently my milk is enough for him. No other thing a mother needs a lot than a full support from her loved ones. I could finally gain a full support from my husband and family after giving them some articles about breastfeeding. Slowly but sure, my mom started to support my activity to pump and to stock my milk a month before I got back to work, so Rayyan still can drink my milk while I'm on work. My mom took care of him while I was doing breast pumping. On weekend, Die took over the duty to play with him. My spirit leveled up and my confidence boosted. It was all from them, the people of my life. Not to mention all my friends from AsiForBaby mailing list. Thanks to them, I could learn and know all about motherhood (Though I never met you, but I love you all, smart mommies!)
Back to work. I felt like I was thrown from my bed to the lake full of starving alligators. They are all chasing at me, grinding their sharp teeth and be ready to eat me alive. I was shocked for how much work I have to do in such a little time I had, and I haven't experience the tensed working atmosphere anymore for three months. How ugly was that? I was pressed down, thrown right and left, jumped up high and BHAM! fell hardly to the earth again. I wasn't ready to face all these rushes at work. That's when I was getting depressed and stressed.
Yet, I didn't notice that until last week, when I had to let go my Mom. She was going to our hometown to take care of our sick grandma. My helper has gone... Thank God I have Turni, my nanny. She's an experienced and neat nanny. She only needed 2-3 days to be closed emotionally with my Little Rayyan. I am so thankful to have her as our nanny. I don't have to be worried that much when leaving him to work. But still, it didn't reduce my tensed and stressed feeling... Until I realized that my milk was reducing. After asking advices from some friends, I decided to go to the lactation counselor to seek for another helper and spirit booster :).
Still 2 months, 2 long months to go before I can say "Alhamdulillah", or "Yay!! I did it!". I don't wanna give up. I won't give up and I must not give up in breastfeeding my baby until he doesn't want it anymore. My milk is his human right. If I don't give him his right, I don't deserve to be called a good mother. And I hate a word "bad".
Hope all my efforts to improve my milk will succeed. Bismillah... I'm sure Allah SWT will help me getting through this noble duty. Of course, by HIS will. I know you will help me God... Help me doing this "jeehad" thing without making any anarchy behavior, LOL.
Bismillah, wish me luck, guys ^^
~G~
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