Could Have -Should Haves

We've all done it as parents. I could have done this, I should have done that. Its easy to beat ourselves up over the choices we make as parents. We're constantly getting bombarded with advice from every direction. It get hard to sort through what you feel is right for your family. Even your health care professionals can give conflicting advice.
My biggest issues with parenting have come from lack of knowledge.
My daughter was born severely jaundice made worse because I thought I had someone to show me how to nurse my daughter and they did not. So for 24 hours she didn't eat. She was taken from my room and placed in the NICU with bilirubin levels so close to brain damage. They gave her a bottle of formula as soon as she was in there and then called me a few hours later to tell me about it. I cried, on the phone with them, with my husband later and then again on the phone, this time with the pediatrician.  I had wanted to breastfeed so badly, but that one bottle, combined with our problems nursing was the beginning and end of our nursing relationship. I had the lactation consultant come in but even she could not get her to breastfeed. I pumped every other hour for 30mins each time, trying to get my milk to come in so I could stop feeding her formula. They stretched out her belly and kept trying to pump more and more of this imposter milk into my child while I cried and begged her to just try to latch on. It was heartbreaking. At 6 days she was released from the hospital and come home. Every day I tried to get her to latch, but she refused and every day I pumped and got less each time. At 3 weeks there was nothing left, so so became exclusively formula fed.
She was horribly constipated, so we changed formulas, and that made her gassy and spit up. So we switched back, and gave her juice. At two months old we were giving her 4 ounces of juice a day to help her poop. 4 onces. Thats insane for a bitty baby, but to us, it was better then laxatives, right? A few week later she realized what food was and decided she wanted some. She screamed and screamed and made herself sick from it all. We started buy another type of formula and feeding it to her with a spoon. The different taste made her think it was something else. At her 2 month doctor visit, which was horribly late, we told the doctor about this. She recommended that we slowly start solids because she obviously seemed ready for them. At two and a half months we fed her rice cereal. Two and a half months. Such a tiny little thing that could not do much of anything and here she was, eating cereal.
All these things could have been avoided had I done the research myself. If I had only read more on breastfeeding, asked for help earlier. Tried something else.. Maybe all of these things wouldn't have happened. But they did. Helene is two now. She's happy, healthy and incredibly smart. All of those could haves and should haves go flying out the window every time she tells me she loves me and kisses me a million times, giggling between each one.
I'm lucky in that I have done the homework now, I know better and have been very active in seeking out the knowledge that I need this time around. Emma is exclusively breastfed, well except for the Cheeto incident, but thats a whole other post and I don't have the time to write it tonight. She is healthy and happy and hopefully just as smart as her big sister.

I still feel mom-guilt over the should haves, but I think no matter what parenting choice I make, there will always be a could have or a shouldn't have out there. Now I just strive to be the best mom I can, as informed as possible and to make sure that my kids are healthy and thriving.