Jen B writes:
After it took medical intervention to conceive, and then again to labor, I thought the one thing I had left that my body could maybe, just maybe, do right was breastfeed my son. I took classes. I requested lactation support. It wasn’t until many months later that I realized, in my haze of sleep deprivation and adrenaline and newness to motherhood, that many of the same institutions that had encouraged, perhaps even pressured, me to breastfeed had let me down.
We never achieved a good latch in the hospital. A parade of lactation consultants visited me over three days to tell me, one by one, that I was Doing It Wrong, and all promised to return with something that was going to Fix It. I never saw the same person twice. The nurses were swamped and didn’t have much time to help, either. On our first night home, a shitty latch still my only accomplishment with my son at the breast, he began crying incessantly around 3am and I came completely unhinged. He could not latch. I could not feed him. And he was hungry. Through body-shaking sobs I fed him a free sample of formula from my OB’s office. I felt like a complete failure.
Our pediatrician congratulated me for this decision, as he was indeed hungry and losing weight, and insisted (there was never a discussion around supplementary systems) I continue to give formula until he gained weight. He did within days, and then my milk came in (then thanks to severe engorgement — even the arrival of milk was traumatic — my relationship with The Pump began). We soon figured out the latch, and nursing got better, but the seed had been planted that I should measure and monitor and record every aspect of his feedings, that nursing my son was a series of data points more than bonding experiences. And so I tracked, with precision, and that obsession grew. Incidentally, how many times do you think the pediatrician asked to see my carefully scribed breastfeeding log? Right, never. Yet I continued to track his food consumption for nearly a year. This is how crazy breastfeeding made me.
I’m not sure why I stuck with it through three bouts with mastitis, hours spent hooked up to The Pump to produce miniscule amounts of milk, erstwhile round-the-clock nursing and nighttime cluster feedings. Determination? Spite? And yet I don’t regret soldiering on. When my son self-weaned at 11 months, it was nearly as distressing as those early weeks when we struggled to get our start with breastfeeding. It was only a few weeks later, when hours and hours of my day were freed to do exotic things like take a long shower, that I felt relief. Relief that the struggle was over, at last.
If I have another child, I will breastfeed again. But I will know to go easier on myself, to trust my instincts over contradictory and hypocritical medical advice. I will try to enjoy it.
