What's that smell? Oh, wait, it's me.

As one can imagine, becoming a parent is quite the learning experience. A lot of what I do is trial and error. The baby is crying -- I burp her, she cries. I check her diaper, she cries. I feed her, she cries. I snuggle her, she stops crying. Being fairly clueless when I became pregnant, and even until I delivered (JBean's diaper was the first I ever changed, she was the first baby I ever fed, the first swaddle I ever swaddled...you get the picture), I feel so much more enlighted, even though I've only been a mama for six short weeks.

One of the things I wish someone warned me about was formula. Now before anyone preaches to me about breast being best, it's not for everyone. I went into this pregnancy with the attitude of it breastfeeding works out, great, if not, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I lied a bit about not losing sleep. JBean was born on a Thursday... by Saturday, she had lost over 10% of her little body weight. My body simply wasn't doing enough for her. She would try to feed, and unbeknownst to me, not get anything, so she'd freak out, thus freaking me, clueless new mama, out. By Saturday, the doctor had me start supplementing with formula since her weight loss was so significant. This made feeding JBean quite the task. I would feed her for 15 minutes on each side, then have to give her an ounce of formula (and anyone who knows JBean knows she is the slowest eater ever when she wants to be). After she was fed, I had to pump for 15 minutes on each side in an attempt to (unsuccessfully) get my supply up. Needless to say by the time I was done, it was time to do it all over again. I was tired, JBean was tired, and we were both frustrated. After doing this for several days at home, without the awesome support of the staff at the hospital, I made the decision to exclusively formula feed. I honestly think that if I didn't make this decision when I did, I would have fallen into a deep spiral of post partum depression (the taboo that just isn't talked about...)

Now, there were a few things no one had warned me about with the formula.

1. I knew it was expensive but I didn't realize how expensive. Yeah, they send all kinds of coupons and stuff, but still. The first few weeks weren't so bad, however, now that JBean is getting bigger, she's eating more -- thus we go through at least a can of formula a week @ about $26/pop.
2. No one warned me that powdered formula can make babies very gassy. My starving baby was much happier than my gassy baby -- so I felt terrible for a couple of days for switching from BF.
3. This brings us to our last, and final point, and the title of this post -- formula stinks to high hell... especially the Enfamil GentleEase formula. Holy moly. My baby farts like a grown man now... I swear she could clear a room.

The reason for the title of this post -- JBean spit up on me earlier today... it was about 90 degrees and she got me pretty good. My kid's got good aim. I promptly changed my shirt but about an hour ago I found myself saying "what's that smell"? I knew it wasn't JBean because she literally had just had a bath... in fact, I began smelling the smell while she was in the tub. Turns out the horrendousness my nose picked up on was me -- not only did she get my shirt, she somehow got my bra too. Good lord, I stink to the high heavens.