stroked her cheek to try to wake her for the other side, but Jaime was already in a deep sleep, and no longer hungry, which left Zoe with one breast drained and the other feeling like it was going to burst, as the milk poured onto the sheets again, and she was lying in a pool of milk.
Bottle feeding was beginning to sound like a great idea to Austin, but he wouldn’t have dared say it to Zoe, even in jest, not to mention the aggressive-looking machine that was still sitting on the floor next to the bed. Zoe had already figured out that she was going to be in pain until Jaime nursed from the other breast, but she showed no sign of waking up. In one day, the baby had turned their life upside down. When he said it, Zoe burst into tears and took it as criticism of her.
She put the baby back in the Moses basket, and they managed to doze off for half an hour, Zoe with her breast throbbing, and half an hour later Jaime woke up, hungry again, since she had taken less than half a feed before. Zoe picked her up, and put her at the full breast, with tears running down her cheeks as Jaime latched on fiercely. It hurt like hell, but less than an overfull breast that needed the baby to nurse.
Zoe changed Jaime’s diaper after she finished nursing, swaddled her tightly in a little pink blanket, as they had shown her in the hospital, and put the baby back in the basket. She and Austin managed to sleep for an entire hour, before the baby woke up again. She was alternating breasts now, and couldn’t stay awake long enough to nurse from both, so Zoe constantly had one breast or the other throbbing, and she was getting less than an hour to rest and produce milk between feeds. She seemed to be producing too much, more than the baby wanted. Her mother had told her that her milk supply would adjust to the baby’s needs, but that would take several weeks. Zoe couldn’t imagine going through this until then. Childbirth had been easy compared to nursing, but she was worn out by both.
By morning, both parents looked like they’d been shipwrecked, and Jaime had cried for most of the night. Zoe called their pediatrician and told her what was happening. She told Zoe that they needed to get more time between feeds, even if Austin had to take the baby in another room to hold her and distract her, or rock her to sleep, and keep her away from Zoe. It sounded easier than it was, dealing with a howling infant. She assured Zoe that it would settle down as the baby adjusted, and when the lactation specialist came at noon, she told her the same things. She told Zoe not to use the pump, or she would produce even more milk, for the moment she had more than the baby wanted, and they had to get in sync. The whole process seemed exhausting and overwhelming, and the second night was harder than the first. Zoe had never felt so inept in her life. She was failing the most basic element of motherhood, Nursing 101.
By the time they went to Cathy Clark’s office for their scheduled visit when Jaime was five days old, Zoe had been in tears for several days, she and Austin were snapping at each other, which they normally never did. Their relationship had been smooth and easy until then. But neither of them had had a decent night’s sleep all week. Zoe told the doctor that Jaime had colic. She had read about it, and she showed all the signs. She was worried that Jaime might have a stomach obstruction of some kind which kept her from nursing, and she said that she had had projectile vomiting that morning. Dr. Clark gave Zoe a pamphlet with helpful hints about nursing, calmly reassured them both, and said there was no indication or symptom of an obstruction. Babies vomit, she told them, and real projectile vomiting could go six or eight feet, which wasn’t the case here. She wasn’t colicky, they didn’t have the nursing in sync with the baby’s needs yet, and they needed to be patient, and try to relax. She suggested that they hire a night nurse, to help get them on a schedule, and some kind of routine. She said an