Ayman and Malek

 A year ago we were in Egypt. My sister in law has two daughters, Nada and Malek, and a son , Ahmed. Malek is the youngest, about 1.5 months older than my son. We took these pictures of the two babies. As you can see my son was a lot skinnier in Egypt. I think he was like, 12 pounds while we were there. When his daddy came home a month after us, the baby had gained 3 lbs. I blame it on formula. The little fart started refusing to breastfeed on the right breast while we were in Egypt, then refused the left when we got got home. I tried pumping and supplemental feeding because my production went down while I was there. It didn't work except to damage my breasts with the pump. I gave up in April or so, trying to get him to nurse and continued giving him breast milk in bottles with formula. It is funny, how bummed out I got when I stopped trying to get him to nurse. I was hurt. My feelings were hurt . I was so upset that he didn't want to nurse from me anymore. I still have dreams of nursing him and I swear I won't be taking a trip to Egypt in the formative breastfeeding months of babyhood. Long story short: hungry crying baby+demolished nipples+70 cent Enfamil+nipple refusal=chunky monkey.

Please let me add that I know the benefits of breastfeeding, I knew how to breastfeed. There was a series of unfortunate events that led to me *gasp* giving my son a bottle. Let us suffice it to say that I have suffered through guilt from this and don't really welcome any reprimanding emails in regard to this post.