Breastfeeding Journey: Part One
Nothing could have prepared me for how difficult my breastfeeding journey has been.
I say “has been” because it is STILL something I carry lots of guilt about. I breastfed each of my babies for a few weeks, but nowhere near how long I would have liked. My son is seven months old and even now when I see a mama breastfeeding, I get a twinge in my heart.
I’ve always considered myself more of a natural mom. I eat only organic fruits and vegetables, I rarely wear make-up, and I use a lot of eastern medicine. I thought breastfeeding would just come naturally. I also assumed this because from everything I had heard, “breast is best”, right??
I know that just because I didn’t breastfeed for a certain length of time, it does not make me a terrible mother. However, I REALLY wanted to and thought I would have a different breastfeeding story.
My breastfeeding journey started moments after giving birth to my daughter Kara. I was told that you should try and get the baby to latch immediately, so thats what I did. But she wasn’t latching right away and when she finally did, it didn’t feel right.
I had also been told that your nipples will get sore, so I assumed this sharp pain was just something I had to endure. The next day while still in the hospital, I had a lactation specialist come in to help and see what might be wrong. By this time, my nipples were already cracked and beginning to bleed. She introduced the nipple shield and said to use it until my nipples healed. Once they were healed, I could get rid of it and have her latch without it. Sounded easy enough.
Meanwhile, Kara’s bilirubin levels were slightly elevated (she was jaundice) but the hospital pediatrician didn’t seem too alarmed so I got sent home with an appointment the following day at my pediatrician’s office to check her levels again.
At the next day’s appointment, Kara’s levels were alarmingly high. High enough that they re-admitted us to the hospital to stay overnight while baby Kara sat in a light box.
I know now that this is common and not really that big of a deal. At the time, I thought something was seriously wrong.
When they put babies in these light boxes, you can only take them out to feed them. All I could think of was how I was losing out on all that important skin to skin time.
I was exhausted, extremely hormonal, and feeling utterly self-conscious as a brand new mom. I already had to wear a weird contraption on my nipple to breastfeed and now my daughter has toxins in her body that she hasn’t been able to flush out on her own. I felt like I was failing at the one and only thing I ever wanted in life – being a mom.
When we were re-admitted, Kara’s levels kept rising and she wasn’t having any wet diapers. The nurse rudely informed me that her levels were rising because I was starving my baby and that if I didn’t start supplementing her with formula NOW, she could have real health problems.
I was SO anti-formula that in my crazy hormonal, sleep-deprived state, I told my husband, Conor, that the doctor and nurses didn’t have our best interest and that we needed to just leave the hospital. Like, pack up our things and “escape”. I was completely delusional.
He of course said I was being crazy (in a nice but direct way lol) and asked “what is the problem with formula?” I lost it. Because breast is best! Because formula isn’t natural!! Because it’s taking away from my belief on what defines an adequate mother.
I remember sitting on the hospital bed, pumping, tears streaming down my face, and watching Conor feed Kara a bottle of formula. I was so upset about it, I wouldn’t even look at the nurse when she would come in.
Eventually, Kara’s levels began to rise and we were released to go back home. I was given instruction to breastfeed for 20min on each side, then pump for 20min and supplement Kara with either pumped milk or formula after breastfeeding.
And I was instructed to do this every 2 hours without any indication on when to stop this type of feeding schedule. It was easily taking me 90minutes to complete all of that, only to start the process all over again 30min later.
That doesn’t take into consideration diaper changes, showers, eating, or anything else that a normal human needs in order to survive. In my opinion, having a horribly sleep deprived and emotionally unstable new mother do this process is completely insane.
I was losing my mind. I wasn’t bonding with Kara. In fact, I was starting to hold some resentment towards her. How come this was so difficult? What was I doing wrong? Is something wrong with her???
Image by Shiloh Colleen
A few days after following this process, I went to a lactation group at the hospital where I delivered Kara. I did a weigh in feed to see exactly how much milk was transferring. I was beginning to pump more so I couldn’t figure out why Kara was still so hungry after breastfeeding.
The woman running the group told me to feed for 10min with the nipple shield, do a weigh in, then 10min without the nipple shield and weigh again. And to do that on both sides.
We discovered that milk wasn’t transferring with the nipple shield, BUT she was getting a good amount without the shield – yay! So, the woman told me to drop the shield and just stop pumping altogether. What a relief, I thought. After a long week, I finally felt like things were turning around.
The next day, my breasts started to get engorged. They were enormous, hard as rocks, and extremely painful. Again, I just assumed I must be producing a lot of milk and that it was a good thing.
A couple days later, I spiked a high fever. It was on a Sunday so I wrote a message to my OB and I took myself to urgent care thinking I had the flu.
The doc took my vitals, said I had a really high heart rate and fever and that it was most likely the flu. He asked if I had any other symptoms and I just said my breasts were extremely painful. He took a look and said, “yeah they’re engorged. Put some hot compresses on them and take some advil.” He then prescribed me tamiflu and said that I probably shouldn’t breastfeed if I was going to take it.
At this point, I would have rather died (literally) than stop breastfeeding, so I didn’t even fill the prescription. That night my fever was raging at 103 and I felt like shit.
The next morning, my OB replied to my email saying it sounded like I had mastitis and that I should come in to be seen. What the hell is mastitis?!? I looked it up online, and sure enough, I fit every single symptom.
I was angry at the urgent care doctor, but was more so embarrassed that I went in thinking I had the flu and not knowing what mastitis even was. My OB saw me that day and prescribed me antibiotics. She said it was a pretty bad infection and that it might take a while to go away. She also said it could affect my supply.
Not only did it affect my supply and take awhile to subside, my breasts started peeling. The peeling started at the nipple and slowly moved all the way around my breast and up my chest. It took weeks for it to go away. In addition, one side almost completely dried up and the other side reduced by 50%. I started supplementing again.
I felt completely defeated. By now, Kara was about 4 weeks old. I was still determined to breastfeed, so I hired a Lactation Consultant to come to my house to give me one on one help.
She told me to do the same cycle again of breastfeed, pump, and supplement but to reduce time, she wanted to use a tube and syringe to feed Kara supplemented milk while I was also breastfeeding.
I had rented a hospital grade pump and was also eating lactation cookies and taking a fennel supplement.
Two weeks went by with zero progress on supply. I was crying every single day, my relationship with Conor was stressed, and I hadn’t really bonded with Kara. I felt like a shell of a human.
At the 6 week follow up appointment with my OB, I told her everything that I had been going through with breastfeeding. I told her I was so depressed and demoralized and felt like I just wasn’t cut out to be a mom.
I’ll never forget what she said to me that day. “Jami, you don’t have to breastfeed to be a good mom. In fact, sometimes you’re an even better mom if you don’t. What’s most important is your health and sanity. Kara needs you.”
For some reason, I just needed someone to tell me it’s ok to stop. I realized that even though it was something I wanted so badly, it was taking over my life and I was already missing out on Kara’s sweet first months.
After that, I went home and I started the process of drying up my milk and started exclusively feeding Kara formula. It only took a couple days for my milk to dry up since my supply was already so low.
I always carried a tiny bit of guilt, but honestly felt relief that I could finally focus on being a happy and present mom with my first born baby girl.
When Kara was four months old, I found out I was pregnant again. Maybe breastfeeding will be different this time, I hoped.
(to be continued…)
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