"If I hit her...I'll lose my job."

McClellan is sick, again, for the second time since starting day care August 23rd. Really she never got fully over the congestion from being sick the first time.

I picked her up from daycare on Friday and Erica & Brandi told me they thought she was getting sick again and wasn't feeling well. We came home and she slept from 5:00 - 8:00, woke up in time to take an 8 oz bottle and then went back to sleep again. We woke her up to change her diaper and put her to bed, feed her again...and she slept from 10:00pm - 5:15am Saturday morning. I got up, breastfed her and then she went back down until 9:00am.

To say that McClellan is an amazing sleeper would be an understatement-even when she's sick she's a sleeping rock star!!

When she got up at 9:00 I took her temp and she was still running a low fever-slightly over 100 degrees. We decided to all the Dr and get in that morning - good thing I followed my gut; McClellan has her first ear infection and is now on her first antibiotic.

This sucks. Having her sick and on meds blows. She absolutely *HATES* having her nose sucked out and we have to do that often. I'm not a fan of overusing antibiotics and would have preferred to delay giving her any for as long as possible. The risks of not treating an ear infection are too high though, and I'm not willing to risk it. The Dr. says that she'll won't be contagious after being on the antibiotic for 24 hours and that she should start feeling better in about that same time frame.

So off we went to get her saline drops for her nose and fill her prescription. The pharmacy was going to be awhile so we decided to leave and go get a bite to eat. As Matt ordered for us, I sat down at a table and pulled out a bottle to feed McClellan. There was no hiding that she's sick-you can hear the rattling around when she breathes (luckily it's all in her head and hasn't gone to her chest) and her little nose, no matter how often we wipe/clean it, seems to always be snotty.

I sat there feeding McClellan and noticed a woman at a table about 10' away staring at us. I smiled, assuming she was staring because my little girl is super cute. A few minutes later a younger woman and a baby came and sat down with the "staring woman." It was then that I heard the "staring woman" say "No wonder her baby is sick-she doesn't breast feed..."

About every emotion went through my head...anger, embarrassment, sadness, guilt. How dare she judge me. How dare she assume anything. She has no idea what I've done to try and get my supply bumped up. She has no idea how much guilt I feel and how I wonder if Punky's immune system isn't as strong as it could be because I'm not able to exclusively breast feed her.

I became enraged. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to walk over to her table and go off. I was so upset I had tears in my eyes. I kept telling myself "If I hit her, I"ll lose my job." Notice that I wasn't as concerned about being charged, but being charged would mean I would lose my job.

I'm sure that sounds ridiculous-hitting someone. I agree. But I'm just being honest, that's where my head went.

What I should have done is walk over, let her see the tears in my eyes, and tell her how much her words hurt me. I should have made her listen to all that I've done; from lactation cookies, lactation consultant appointments, prescriptions that are supposed to help build your supply, herbs, supplements, nasty tasting tea, the list goes on. And then, then I should have asked her if she thought it would have been better had I let my daughter starve.

I'm a good mom, a darn good mom. I may be new at this but I think I'm doing a great job. Do I wish that I could produce enough milk so that McClellan was only being given breast milk-you bet I do, but not being able to does NOT make me a bad mom.