How LÍLLÉbaby Helped Heal My Heart
by Sara
of Pretty in Pink Mama
Motherhood.
Motherhood is the most beautiful, nurturing, hilarious, fun, tiring (in a good way), challenging job we’ll ever have. It’s an indescribable GIFT. Truly rewarding. However, sometimes things that are completely out of our control take pieces of motherhood from us. Fortunately, LILLEbaby has brought a great deal of unexpected healing to my heart.
The thing that’s not obvious from the outside, is that during the first year and a half of motherhood, there have been two profound periods of sadness. Huge senses of loss actually. Mommy-baby bonding that I felt slipping through my fingers.
The first I’ve never publicly shared until now. I can’t be alone in this… there have to be other moms who relate. Ethan and I had a tremendously difficult time nursing. I had to go to a lactation consultant one to two times A WEEK to have my double mastitis drained. Some people suffer from mastitis on one side… once, twice, maybe even three or four times. I had it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Both sides. Ahh – my eyes are tearing up just typing this out. That was just the beginning; other breastfeeding problems piled on. We nursed as long as I possibly could; one month and a half. Switching to formula was the best choice for our family – we were all happier for it… but the sadness and loss I felt from not being able to nurse longer were very real.
Fast-forward several months. Ethan was 9 months old, and I started to feel really sick. I had a lot of pain in the pregnancy and delivery areas of my body. Time and doctors’ appointments progressed, but my condition worsened. By the time my son was 10 months old, I was crawling around my own home just to get around. I couldn’t hold my baby. I couldn’t feed him; it was too painful to even support him while he drank his bottle. I couldn’t walk upright, and I was in bed every day, with the exception of my hospital visits. We had round-the-clock care for the baby, and myself, while I laid in bed listening to other people take care of him. I felt so UNABLE. As the months continued, doctors discovered severe nerve damage, terrible internal inflammation, injuries and other problems along those lines. Through strict diet and physical therapy, my condition has become manageable. I’ve never been MORE THANKFUL to live a mostly normal, happy life. But the entire time period that I couldn’t hold my son was devastating. Truly traumatizing. More spent time in the ER and getting body scans, than cuddling with my cutie pie.
I genuinely thought the baby wearing phase with Ethan was over. OVER, OVER. By the time I was healthy enough to carry him, he was heavier, taller and didn’t want to be worn.
Fast forward: Ethan was 16 months old, and something truly amazing happened.
LILLEbaby gave us a second chance at ‘super closeness,’ as I like to call it. Seriously, LILLEbaby healed a part of my soul – a piece of my heart that had been broken for months, began to heal once we got our CarryOn toddler carrier.
LILLEbaby BROUGHT OUR BABY-WEARING PHASE BACK TO LIFE!
My son weighs 31lbs, and is over 36” tall, and I wear him with great ease in our CarryOn. He loves being in the LILLEbaby.
We first used our CarryOn on our trip to Mexico. On day 1 Ethan took right to it. We walked the beaches for hours together. We listened to the waves, breathed in the salty air, and laughed as I bounced up and down the shoreline with him. Can you imagine how incredibly healing and profound that was, after everything we’ve been through?
#Healing #BabyWearing #Bonding #ThankYouLILLEBaby
Ethan laid his head down on me, while in our LILLEbaby CarryOn. He rested on me. My heart swelled, and I started crying instantly. Tears of joy. I tried to hold it back, as not to disturb his rest. I was so overjoyed by his closeness. Ethan and I are as close as a mommy and her baby boy can be. We are two peas in a pod, but this is a different kind of close. A tightly knit, constant hug type of closeness. The we-lost-a-lot-of-cuddle-time-during-his-infancy-but-now-we’re-getting-it-back closeness.
LILLEbaby has given us back some of the bonding that my body couldn’t. There might not ever be enough words to describe how thankful I am.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my motherhood journey thus far. If you can relate to any of this, have any comments or questions, or just want to say hi, I would love to hear from you. We mamas have to stick together!
Lots of Love,
Sara a.k.a. Pretty in Pink Mama
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