Not as crunchy as I planned.

I strived to be a "crunchy" mama. All natural, no pain meds during labor, as little medical intervention as was possible during my labor, organic, cloth diapers, co-sleeping, baby wearing. exclusively nursing until my daughter was six months old and then continue nursing on demand until she was three. And then it all blew up in my face. I was pre-eclamptic, induced 6 weeks early, my daughter was in the nicu for 2 weeks. Thankfully nothing was severely wrong with her, no jaundice, no heart or lung problems. The only thing she needed to do was learn how to eat. So far the only thing going for me is the co-sleeping. She's bottle fed formula, she wears disposable diapers, hates the sling, and I am far from eating organic myself. I've gotten a suprising amount of flack from other "crunchy" moms about how I'm practically screwing up my daughter's life by not doing any of the things I had PLANNED on doing. This comes from people I would consider friends to the cashier at my local Walmart. It amazes me how people who are all about the welfare of the baby can't see that maybe what's best for it isn't, in fact, being the crunchiest person on the planet. If my daughter didn't receive formula, she'd starve as milk sharing is unfortunately not an option for me and my milk never came in properly for me, despite my best efforts. I'm not saying women shouldn't TRY to nurse their children, I think it's the most natural thing for them. But we as mother's (or TOC/ planning on having one eventually) need to understand that what works for one doesn't really work for the other. I've seen "lactivist" essentially push women away from their cause by telling them how aweful of a mother a woman would be if she even dared give her sweet precious little Bobby formula, or how dare she consider circumcision as an option. It doesn't come down to whether or not the mother was making an informed decision, it came down to what these people "knew" to be the ONLY right way to raise a child. I want this blog to be a place where I can feel safe trying to be crunchy and not quite making it.