Why I Stopped Blogging

Buster in the hospital sink

I think that the blogging really stopped in January--that's when everything came to a standstill for me. (I blame the Christmas Letter wherein I wrote that I was looking forward to a much easier year when 2011 rolled along.)

The holidays were super busy, as holidays tend to be, and we had to reschedule Buster's checkups a few times due to unexpected family events and illnesses. By the time we made it to the clinic it had been two months since his last appointment. He had not gained even an ounce in two months. Not one ounce.

The doctor took one look at him and called the hospital where he was born.

Diagnosis: failure to thrive and severe anemia and possession of the worst mother ever.


I drove him to the hospital where he was admitted and given a private room, as he was the only kid on the ward without RSV, and we lived there, on the fifth floor, for seven days, and that's when I kind of shut down.

I was in charge of his food, of making it, of the delivery system, of the waste retrieval--how had I missed this? Partly I know it was because we were always told "He is a preemie--he will be small for a while." But how was I to know that he was too small?

If I am being honest, there were whispers. Proddings and nudges to my spirit. And I dismissed them, mostly because of pride.

The ONE thing my body did correctly was make milk--and it made a boatload. So how could it not be enough? I would not entertain the idea, no matter how often it popped into my head, that it was not doing the job.

I needed to quantify that I was a good mother. And nursing did that for me. And starved my son in the process*.

And so we spent a week in the hospital fattening Buster up. Drying my supply with cabbage leaves. Teaching the boy to sit up and roll and smile and sleep for longer than 90 minutes at a stretch. (Apparently he was not fussy or sensitive, just hungry.) Teaching me to rely on the Holy Ghost again, and to listen and obey willingly and quickly. And one of the messages I heard loud and clear was "Focus on yourself and your home and your family and put away everything else."

And that's why I left the internets.


*I am absolutely not advocating giving up nursing or not ever breast feeding. Don't pull that crap.