Thursday, December 6 is Breastfeeding Day on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog, DC Metro Moms Blog and newly-launched NY City Moms Blog. Check out all the entries. This is my story, and I'm sticking to it.
When I was pregnant with my son, there was a mini-baby boom in my office. That year, no less than five women gave birth, which was pretty remarkable considering that only 22 people worked in the office at the time. Of the preggos, four of us were committed to breastfeeding, and one decided early on that she would not, under any circumstances, breastfeed her baby. Her rationale was that she had given over her body for 9 months to this baby, and that was her limit. She wanted her body back and that was that.
Around the watercooler, this became a topic of ongoing conversation. No amount of research (she was herself a trained biologist) or emotional appeals about mother-child bonding would sway her. I'm pretty much a "to each her own" kind of gal, but this was puzzling to me.
I entered into the breastfeeding business a bit naively, I must admit. I had this vision of a blissful scene of mother and baby bonding and gazing lovingly at each other in blissed-out harmony. I thought, "How hard could it be?" and defiantly scoffed at the training video provided by the hospital.
When the moment of truth arrived, I was a little stymied by what to do. I put the baby to the breast, careful not to rest him on my C-section incision. Instead of latching, he struggled for a bit, gave up and screamed bloody murder for half an hour. I tried different positions and holds, but nothing worked. He screamed, then I cried. My husband looked helplessly on at the two of us, bawling our eyes out.
I rang for the nurse, and she showed me the "football hold", and so I tucked the screaming bundle under my arm and he was a bit more comfortable, and actually got something going. After about 15 minutes of this, my arm got numb, but I soldiered on. The nurse eventually came in and told me to switch sides. I was relieved, but my son commenced to screaming again, until he settled in on the other side.
By the time we left the hospital, I developed blisters and each latch-on was a painful ordeal. All the nurses could tell me what that was a good thing, because that meant I was "toughening up" and that it would stop hurting...eventually. Did I mention we were there during a nursing strike? For all I know, these substitute nurses could have been urology nurses who didn't know a breast from a swollen prostate gland. Two of them told me that they didn't have kids, but they'd heard that breastfeeding always hurts, but you get used to it eventually.
We got home, and every latch was like putting my boob in a tiny, needle-filled vice. I was sure that I'd given birth to the Son of Dracula, as my toes curled and I winced in pain for every nursing session. Tired and dejected, I tearfully told my husband that I was a failure as a mother, and that would would just have to buy stock in Enfamil. I kept it up, but wasn't sure how long I'd make it. I was sure that in 25 years, my son would be telling his therapist that he was moody and depressed because his mother failed to breastfeed him past 2 weeks of age.
My mother was there when we got home from the hospital. At one point, she started to cry when I was feeding my son. I asked her why she was crying and she said, "Because I hate to see you in such pain. I remember that it hurt, but this is killing me to watch you."
That was my first clue that I was a remedial breastfeeder, and needed help.
When I went in for a check-up, I told my OB how badly the breastfeeding hurt, and she gave me a card with the phone number of a lactation consultant. "Lactation consultant? That's an actual job?"
She assured me that it was, and that this woman could help me. I made an appointment, and bought out every lotion, salve and cream in the drugstore that might possibly aid my ailing nipples, which were blistered and swollen beyond recognition.
We went to see the Lactation Consultant the following week. She was a prim woman with gray hair pulled back in a bun, and reminded me of a school teacher in some one-room prairie schoolhouse. She had me sit topless in front of her and examined my technique from all angles. She pursed her lips and nodded, and said, "I see. I see," a few times, as she poked and prodded my breast with a pencil. Finally, she came up with a diagnosis: Improper Latching.
She explained that my son did not have the proper wide-mouthed grip, and that it was all about the initial approach and the proper angle of positioning. If the initial approach was incorrect, she said, the baby would dangle and not take in the proper amount of nipple to squeeze the milk out. I listened intently, but she could have been explaining vector mathematics or neurosurgery to me. It seemed as complicated to me as trying to refuel the space shuttle in space by carefully docking it alongside a space station. I tried to follow instructions, and failed. She finally picked up the baby, and slapped him onto me at a perfect right angle. Lo and behold, when she did it, it didn't hurt a bit. We practiced the "technique" for a half an hour, until our time was up. By the end, I wanted to throw my arms around this woman and kiss her, or buy her jewelry, or name my next child after her.
The next few weeks, things got better and better, and I finally had the breastfeeding mother-child bonding I had dreamed of. It only took a month, but we two finally got the hang of it.
At around 6 months, I had finally starting to actually look forward to breastfeeding my son. I had gone back to work, so much of his food was now coming from solids, formula, and pumped milk. I went over to the babysitter's house on my lunch hour to feed him every day, and pumped in the bathroom of my office every afternoon.
One day, my son unceremoniously dumped me. I went to the babysitter's house, and offered my baby boy his lunch, and he looked me square in the eye and turned his head, as if to say, "No thanks. That thing is just too slow for me, Lady. Where's my bottle?"
I was crushed. I cried a few tears that night that my son was rejecting me after we had both worked so hard to get this breastfeeding thing right. I tried for two weeks after that to get him to take the breast, and considered quitting my job. I realized early on that in a battle of wills, my son would reign victorious, and just gave up. I continued to pump for a few months after that, until finally, the milk just gave out, as if to say, "Who are you kidding?"
I know that most people think breastfeeding is a no-brainer, that
it's something that comes naturally and easily to everyone. Everytime
I share my story with people, I find more and more women who it didn't
work for, for one reason or another. I give everybody credit for doing
what they have to do to get their babies nourished.
All of the children who were born that year to women in my office grew up to be healthy, strong, and loved. We all had different experiences with breastfeeding and caring for our babies, and now those babies are robust second-graders with differing skills and abilities. I still think breastfeeding is the way to go, but I also know that it's not always as easy as it looks. Sometimes, it just plain sucks.
