Christina: Sometimes you can't

Christina is a freelance writer and mother of three. She blogs about her adventures and misadventures in motherhood at www.mamaneena.com

I suppose I could say my breasts are duds. I suppose that I could act bitter about the fact that they didn’t do their job. I could easily carry guilt that, in a time when anyone and everyone feels your breasts are their business, I didn’t breastfeed my children. Sure, I gave it a shot. But, I can honestly admit that I didn’t give it a commitment.

My first child was born in 2004. I entered motherhood with every intention of doing it naturally, with homemade baby food and breast milk for at least a year. I wanted to be an attachment parenting advocate and do what all the latest research said was best. I was new, confused, and overwhelmed. I spent the first three weeks of my baby’s life living in the bedroom trying to understand and establish a routine. I would breastfeed, pump, change the baby, play with the baby, put the baby to sleep, and start the whole process over. I kept wondering if breastfeeding meant that this would be my life for the next year. I didn’t realize there were resources available for nursing mothers and had no real knowledge to pull from. My breasts were enormous and I was afraid that, on top of everything else, I was suffocating my baby. So, I gave up.

My son was born 15 months later and just 11 months after I underwent a breast reduction. I had dealt with the chronic back pain for too long. Though the surgeon assured me that they would do their best to preserve the milk ducts, I knew there was a risk involved. But, I tried. I tried breastfeeding my new son while attempting to chase after my toddler, unpack our new house, and handle a husband that was traveling constantly. I tried to breastfeed through the colic, the reflux, the lack of sleep, and the lack of milk production. But, I couldn’t. So, I gave up again.

I figured by my third child in 2007 that I should just head straight to frmula. But, I wanted to give it one last shot. I contacted a lactation consultant and did a good bit of research on breastfeeding after a breast reduction. I pulled back out the top of the line breast pump and went in with realistic expectations. But, my expectations didn’t include nipples that were completely raw and bloody from pumping constantly and producing only drops. My expectations did not include the sad, heartbreaking cries of a hungry baby who wanted nothing more that to suckle and have her belly filled. My expectations didn’t include guilt this time around. So, for the last time, I gave up.

I don’t want to remember the first months of my children’s lives with a bunch of ‘If only I had…” statements. It has taken a lot of time, a bit of soul searching, and some genuine acceptance to come to terms with my breastfeeding experiences. I don’t feel my children are any less loved or nurtured or healthy because I chose a different route. While I certainly admire those that can and do breastfeed exclusively, I want to hug those that can’t or don’t. I want the stigma to be removed for those that don’t breastfeed and I want us all to just be glad that, through whatever circumstances, we are actually able to feed our children.

Luck & Planning: Have your support in place to create a no-fail environment

The author of this post blogs at One Tired Ema.

Unlike many women born in 1975, I was breastfed. “For 14 months,” my mom had said on many occasions. “You loved nursing.” I was colicky for my first three months on Earth, and nursing while my mother rocked in a rocking chair was the only thing that would soothe me.

But more than the idea of being able to placate a squalling newborn, what made me sit up and take notice was when my mom said, “Nursing was the best thing I ever did for you and your brother.” Really? That sounded so…preposterous. From my perspective she’s done many great things for us, from looking out for our education to supporting us in scores of afterschool activities; paying for camp, trips abroad, and birthday parties; going to every back-to-school night; laughing at our jokes, admiring our artwork, musical performances, and written compositions. So to call the pinnacle of her parenting as the 14 months she nursed me and the 9 months she nursed and pumped for my brother seemed out of proportion to what she had invested in us since.

But it certainly sounded worth doing, and when I was pregnant with my first baby, back in 2003, it was at the forefront of my mothering plans.

When I was pregnant, I did what geeky, overwrought parents-to-be do. I read an incredible amount of books. Books about pregnancy. Books about giving birth. Books about how the medical establishment was attempting to screw over American women vis a vis giving birth. Books about breastfeeding. Books about parenting. Some of these books were useful. Some were eye-opening. Some made me so crazy that my husband drove me to the library to watch me return them because he was not going to witness that puddle of hormonal goo grow bigger before his very eyes.

I amassed a pile of books about breastfeeding that ranged from the classic (The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding) to the pithy-and-practical (So That’s What They’re For!). I knew about colostrum. I knew what to do for mastitis. I knew how many times to expect my newborn to eat in a day. I knew how to decrease my chance of getting thrush. I knew about nipple confusion. I knew about poop. But most importantly: I understood that nursing was a skill set, requiring instruction, and not all magical goodness from the word “Go.”

I planned to toss the free frmula samples I received from my purchases at Motherhood Maternity and my visits to my OBs office. My husband demurred. “You never know,” he said, shrugging.

I agreed to keep them only if we could shove them into a corner of a closet. “I don’t want to remember they’re here,” I muttered darkly. What I wanted to do, really, was set myself up for success by not having a plan B. I had done so much reading and planning that I didn’t have any plan Bs. And while it didn’t work for my labor and birth, it did for my breastfeeding.

Having heard scores of women’s stories at La Leche League meetings, at the park, and on the internet, I now know that I was lucky. My baby was born at full-term-plus and at a good weight. She was healthy. Neither of us had any of the myriad small physical issues that can interfere with breastfeeding: tongue tie, inverted nipples, jaundice, cracked and bleeding nipples.

But before I can dismiss it all as first-timer’s luck, I give the credit to what I had intuited from my many months’ worth of research: Nursing is a skill set. And as good as the books were, I had real-live people in my corner, ready to teach me and support me from the time I was halfway through my pregnancy, but especially in the first two weeks after my daughter’s birth.

There was my doula (also a La Leche League Leader and breastfeeding educator), who taught me that the birth experience can and will influence the early breastfeeding experience. It was she who wheeled my daughter’s bassinet next to my bed in the recovery room, lifted her out and said, “Ok, time to nurse!” When I protested that I couldn’t feel my legs—the spinal from my C-section had left me paralyzed and shaking—she held my daughter to my breast and showed me how to properly latch her, then stayed through the next nursing. She stayed in touch over the phone, rushing to my defense when the hospital pediatrician wanted to give my daughter formula for (we thought) an unsubstantiated reason.

There was my friend who acted as another birth support person and, more vitally, elected to stay with me during the first night of my daughter’s life. She had nursed four of her own children and knew a lot about How Newborn Babies Are. She slept on the extra bed in my double room, cheerfully positioning us various ways (lying down, cradle, football hold) every two and a half hours through the night and most of the next day.

Help from my mom—who was with us from day eight through day 16—as as well as regular visits from my mother-in-law, who lived locally, allowed me to follow the advice of another friend, who told me that my only “assignment” for the first six weeks of my baby’s life was to park my ass in my recliner and nurse my baby and let everything else go. That was really excellent advice.

And there was my husband, who never once suggested that I do anything besides nurse my daughter. From the time she was about a month old, he happily gave her a bottle of expressed milk on Thursday evenings so I could cook for Shabbat uninterrupted, but he never worried, never indicated impatience or resentment or questioned my breastfeeding odyssey (independently of my own musings on it)—and it became a four-year adventure with her and, after a 26-month stint of tandem nursing, continues with my son.

Breastfeeding can be easy and natural, after the learning curve, after mom and baby have grown to know each other, after a month or two or three. The book learning was great, but it never would have been enough. I needed my support people; I had them, and I succeeded.

Alanna - Guerilla Pumper

I started out careful as can be with my pumping. In a private office, with a picture of the baby, spotlessly clean pumping horns, medela bottles at hand to receive the liquid gold. This lasted maybe two weeks.

First to go was the picture of the baby. In the beginning, I’d gaze at his photograph and remember nursing in vivid detail. I’d picture nursing him snuggled into a comfy chair, or in the morning in bed. But one stressful day I found myself focusing on a grant application that was due, and it didn’t affect my milk production in the slightest. After that, I used my pumping time to think about work problems I didn’t normally have time to work through.

Next were the clean pumping horns. My private office was not my own, and the bathroom was out three doors and down the hall. Packing everything into a bag, taking it to the bathroom, and washing all my gear took time. I somehow fell out of the habit of washing the equipment. Ever. I’d smell it from time to time, and while there was a faint sour smell, it never seemed all that bad. And the baby never seemed to have a problem with the flavor of the milk I pumped with my scummy equipment.

Then I lost my pumping space. We finally hired a director, and that director needed the office space. I was in an open plan office; we didn’t even have cubicles. I ended up in the windowless store room. The IT guy kindly cleared a space big enough for me to stand in, with a stack of boxes to put my pump on.

Finally, it was the bottles. One morning, I forgot my empty bottles to pump into. I realized I poured the milk into milk bags for storage anyhow. Why not pump straight into them? Over time, I also pumped into clean, empty soda bottles, Ziploc freezer bags, and Tupperware containers with a good seal.

My son always took his bottle with pleasure, and I always managed to pump enough milk to keep him exclusively breastfed. He was extremely healthy baby, and he was breastfed until age two. His milk might have been produced under ludicrous and unsanitary conditions, but it was good milk, and as much of it as he needed.

Not All Babies Are the Same - Christy Gunter

This post was contributed by Christy Gunter, who blogs at My Super Kaduper Life.

This is the story of a very stubborn woman who doesn’t like to change things once she has made her mind up and the story of a little baby who was given razor sharp shark gums and grizzly bear jaws. This woman’s boobs and this baby’s mouth collided and brought forth one of the most harrowing tales ever played out in like, real life and stuff. (Continue reading at your own risk. Boobs are mentioned a bunch but not in the good sort of way.)

To start Keaton’s Breastfeeding saga we must go back in time and start with Rowan. Oh, sweet Rowan. Deceiver of mothers. Giver of false hopes. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to breastfeed Rowan- in fact I hadn’t given it much thought until later in my pregnancy when a bunch of Hens kept asking me what my feeding plan was. Derrrrr… Huh. I’m gonna have to feed this thing aren’t I? Crap. After doing a quick poll of my family members I decided I better give breastfeeding a shot. My mom and my 2 older sisters breastfed in some form for 3 months. In fact almost every woman I knew, young or old, had given me the same answer; they did a combination of breast and frmula feeding until the 3 month mark, then dropped the boob like a bad habit. Fine. Sounds good to me. I did a little research, all of which detailed the awesome power of boob milk and glossed over the rough start most women have with breastfeeding. I told everyone who asked that I was going to try to breastfeed but wasn’t going to hold myself to anything, should it prove too difficult.

Minutes after Rowan’s birth, the L&D nurse whipped open my hospital gown, puckered Rowan’s mouth over my nipple and smashed her face onto my boob. She was very “This is how ya do it, OK” instead of slowly walking me through the process, but Rowan just went with it and turned out to be a great latcher on-er (technical term!). The first 2 weeks were ungodly painful. Your nipples get chapped and hard and oh my god I did not think it was possible for them to get that big and red. My milk came down on the 3rd day and my boobs became so engorged Bill and I went out and bought a very expensive (and worth every damn penny!) breast pump. Although Rowan was a great nurser, she never took much at a time so my boobs were always in some form of pain in those early weeks. I remember crying every time she latched on because of the pain, but it never occurred to me that I should quit. Then it just got better. My body adjusted to being assaulted by a baby’s mouth every 2-4 hours, my supply regulated and I started to absolutely love nursing my daughter. I swear rainbows shot out of her butt and singing birds gathered around my head when it was nursing time. By the time she was a month old I had already forgotten how painful the first weeks had been and I went on to nurse her exclusively for 6 months. Because I worked, I had to pump 3 times a day which was great because the company provided a lactation room, but soon my milk supply started to wane because I was pumping more than I was actually nursing. Then I started to get questioned. Those same Hens who were so interested in my baby feeding habits while I was pregnant started asking me again- “You’re STILL breastfeeding?” they would reply. Like 6 months was way too old for a baby to still be given breast milk and oh my god yuck, they made little pinched faces. I was young and stupid so this made me feel really bad. I thought since my supply was dropping anyway, I should probably introduce frmula to Rowan. So for the next two months she was given a combination of frmula and breast milk in a bottle along with being nursed. At the 8 month mark my milk had completely dried up and I was sad, but proud that I had given what I did and happy for the experience of breastfeeding my daughter.

Now. The 27 months between Rowan and Keaton were largely spent researching baby crap. Oh god the hours I spent on Babycenter.com, Parents.com and reading parenting magazines. I was obsessed. I couldn’t wait to breastfeed my son and though I was not going to set any parameters- I wanted to do a minimum of 8 months and hoped to make it to the 1 year mark. Then, as his due date grew closer, I thought I ABSOLUTELY HAD to do 8 months because that was how long Rowan got breast milk. Then I started thinking that if he didn’t get it for the same amount of time, that would mean I loved her more and then he would grow up into some disgruntled asshole who blamed everything wrong in his life on my inability to give him breast milk for the EXACT same duration as his sister, who would no doubt be some sort of super space rocket genius because she got breast fed for the perfect amount of time and YOU RUINED MY LIFE MOM WAHHHHH!!! In conclusion he would give me some sort of drug that would make it look like I was dead but really I wasn’t and they would bury me alive and I would spend 2 weeks clawing at the coffin’s hood before I died and… See where this is going? Christy = CRAZY.

So poor Keaton was born to this crazy lady and his L&D nurse did much the same thing as Rowan’s. Only it was worse because nurses can get really over-worked and tired and they kind of assume if you already have a baby that you know what you are doing and they don’t offer a lot of support. Keaton latched on OK at first and went right to town with feedings. This time my milk let down even faster and harder. I knew that it would hurt and was somewhat prepared but pain is pain and when something really fucking hurts it doesn’t matter how prepared you are. The first two weeks were awful- so bad, that when it was time to feed him my body would involuntarily start shaking.

I went to see a lactation consultant in the hospital 3 weeks after his birth. At this point my nipples were not just chapped and sore, they had open wounds on them. Both boobs were rock hard and bright red, no matter how many times I fed him or pumped I wasn’t getting any relief. The lactation consultant, who clearly had been to maybe 2 classes 20 years ago for this title, told me Keaton’s latch was good, my boobs didn’t look that bad to her and it would get better soon if I soaked them in a pan of warm water 8 times a day. Yeah, lady- I’m gonna give my hooters a sitz bath 8 times a day-see this little bundle of screaminess over here? I’m kinda busy. Thank God a midwife walked in and caught a glimpse of the cherry red rocks, formerly known as my boobs, because she prescribed a cream that was specifically formulated for this kind of breast feeding damage.

I went home with the nipple goop and some hope that I would get relief. The cream helped between feedings but every time Keaton fed he ripped the scabs off the lacerations. I was shaking so badly before every feeding that I was scared I would drop him. I cried every time this kid ate for over three weeks. My husband told me to stop. My family members told me to stop. I couldn’t though- how could I explain to them that I would be buried alive if I did that? WithOUT sounding crazy. (Answer: I couldn’t.) Then the fever came and I got so sick. Bill had to physically drag me to Urgent Care where they diagnosed me with double mastitis (breast infection) and gave me antibiotics. Then my OB called me because he had heard I’d been treated for it and wanted to see me. He gave me a better antibiotic to clear up the infection, of which I had to take two rounds because the lacerations on my breasts were not letting the infection heal properly.

By the time Keaton was just over a month old my nipples looked like they’d been through a grinder. With the infection cleared up, my doctor came up with a regimen where I breast fed Keaton only on my left side and pumped only on my right side- hoping the worse laceration could heal if bandaged and not gnawed on by baby shark breath. This was exhausting because I had to breast feed for part of his feeding, then give him a bottle of breast milk and then pump my right side. By the time I was done with one feeding it was time to start the next and I had to take care of a two year old and a baby who didn’t consent to being put down very often (read: AT ALL), so many of those pumping sessions were accompanied by his screaming, which started Rowan in on HER own brand of screaming. After 2 weeks of this my doctor told me to seriously consider calling it quits. (Yep-keep scrolling, there is even MORE to this awesome story. Or don’t. Probably better to make up your own happy ending at this point.)

I couldn’t do it though. NOW it was getting really effing personal. I could not give up after going through 6 weeks of absolute hell. Then he will have WON, people. (Yes, I am now in a deadlocked battle of wills with a 6 week old child. WINNER!). All of my effort would have been for nothing if I gave up now. I worked so hard through the first tough weeks and then through the mastitis and now the lacerations which really can only be described as chunks missing from my nipple. (Point of reference: Mad-Eye Moody’s nose.) I couldn’t quit now. I knew I was being illogical but I had done this before and wanted so very much to have a good experience of nursing Keaton.

Somewhere around the 2 month mark, things started to get better. I still had pain from the lacerations but they were no longer open wounds. Keaton’s floppy head was getting stronger so I didn’t have to prop him up as much and he was getting better at life, too. I put my head down and pushed through and by the time he was 4 months we had reached the magical land of rainbow butts and tweeting birds. We learned the absolutely fantastic art of nursing while laying down and this was life-alteringly beautiful. When he woke up early in the morning this position bought me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half of more sleep. Anyone with one or more kids will tell you how awesome sleep is. They’ll talk about it like sex. “Oh my god I had the most amazing nap today- it totally blew my mind” etc. etc. Even though things in the household were still pretty rough due to Keaton’s never ending screaminess, breast feeding was no longer another thing pulling us down. It was giving my son and I some much needed bonding time and PLUS! babies can’t scream when there is a boob in their mouth.

So there it is. I won. But not in the bratty I told you so kind of way. I won because I worked really damn hard and it thankfully worked into something beautiful in the end. I nursed Keaton exclusively until he started taking solid food at 4.5 months and between my boobs and the hundreds (literally) of bags of breast milk I expressed I never had a need for frmula. Last week, at 15 months, we shared our last nursing session. He has graduated to whole milk and no longer has the patience to feed from me, a cue my body took well and I, quite simply, quit producing milk. It was the right time for us to end it and I took away so much from our nursing time together.

So now all I have to worry about is Rowan trying to kill me because Keaton got 15 months and she only got a measly 8 and how on earth could I be such a terrible mother…

PS- One major lesson I took away from this, was to not judge anyone on how they choose to feed their baby. I don’t care if you choose to skip breastfeeding all together as long as you have your kid’s best interest at heart and I don’t care if you decide to breast feed your 3 year old as long as you have solid boundaries in place and it’s working for your family. It’s a personal choice that is specific to each mom and baby. My story wasn’t the ideal outcome I’d wished for but in the end it was the right choice for my family.

Amanda and Zane: A Rocky Start

My son was born three weeks early, for no particular reason. When he was born, all he wanted to do was sleep and sleep. He’d try to latch on, but he never seemed to nurse. I told the doctor, and she said maybe it was just an unfamiliar feeling for me. He was born on Friday, and we all went home on Monday. He still hadn’t really nursed. No one believed me. He’s put his mouth on my breast and look like he was eating, but I knew he wasn’t. I worried that he wasn’t eating right because he was a little premature.

He lost more than ten percent of his birth weight, and he turned yellow. The doctor brought me a hand pump and told me to start expressing milk and feeding it to him with a teaspoon. She told me to have him sleep in the sun. I did that, and my arms would get so tired pumping. No one knew why he wouldn’t latch on to me. He would nuzzle and nuzzle at my breast and never get any milk.

I started to really worry. I asked the doctor if we should start giving him formula, but she said we didn’t need to do that yet. I had a lactation consultant come, and she just yelled at me to keep trying to nurse. She squeezed him against my breast and he latched on for the first time. I was thrilled. I could tell milk was coming down. I was so happy. Then we noticed that he was turning a scary purple color, and realized the LC was pushing him so hard against my breast that he couldn’t breathe. I pulled her hands off me and the baby stopped nursing and began to wail.

On Tuesday my best friend came over and watched me try to nurse. She asked me if she could try him on her breast. I said yes. She held him to her breast and he opened his mouth wide and snapped on like a snapping turtle. My friend started to laugh and told me she could feel her milk let down, and she’d weaned her own baby a year ago.
So then we knew that the problem wasn’t with my son, but with me. My friend and I started my breasts, accusingly, and then we noticed – my nipples were much smaller than hers. Hers were the size of the top of her pinky finger. Mine were more like pencil erasers.

I reported that to my doctor, and she gave me a nipple shield. The first time I used it, my son grabbed right on and had a full feed. After that, everything was easy.