When Breastfeeding is Hard
Sitting in my hospital bed with a fresh wound across my abdomen where my first baby was emergently rescued (birth story part 1, 2, 3), a lactation consultant rolls in a big yellow pump on wheels. I take mental notes as she shows me how to hook up and use a breast pump. My baby is down the maternity corridor, in the NICU. Not how I imagined motherhood would begin. Or how I would be feeding my baby.
A few weeks later, my son is home from the NICU and I am sitting in my mom’s bedroom with her and my preemie. My husband and I are beyond exhausted. Neither of us is sleeping because we are living in a two-hour cycle around the clock. Every two hours, a 30-minute pump session, wash, sterilize, dry, bag, label, store, and repeat. While I do this, he feeds our son with a bottle.
I just can't get him to latch, I sigh, exasperated and weak.
It is the most natural thing in the world, this is his job — to eat and sleep, you guys will get it, says my mom and she watches me struggle to widen his mouth. She leans in and tries to help me adjust the latch and my son’s body position. We move from the overstuffed chair on the edge to the bed. Nothing is working.
My husband comes into the room as the tears start pushing the rims of my eyes. Maybe this just isn’t supposed to be, formula would be okay. My heart wavers for a minute, then my mind snaps, breast is best. We spent hour after hour, day after day trying to latch and nurse. We cup feed. Use a nipple shield. And, eventually, after a month of the relentless cycle of pumping, bottle feeding, attempting to latch, we figure it out.
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I enter the hospital to give birth to our second son, resolved to get as much facetime with the lactation consultant as possible. I believe that I have the upper hand - working at this hospital, knowing the staff, and reminding myself that everything is different than the first time. This baby is full-term and healthy.
Once we are united, he latches like a little nursing champion, victory! My heart settles knowing that this time is truly different — easier, natural, peaceful. The following day I feel some pinches as I nurse and request the lactation consultant to visit our room. We work on the hold and latch, she tells me to keep trying. Unlatch and start again if you feel pinching, she instructs. So that is what we do.
After a few months, we start to slide down a slippery slope. His latch becomes lazy and he uses me as a chew toy, despite my efforts to break this awful habit. Each feed brings tears, blood, and yelps (from me). I am in pain, dread the next feed, and count the hours until my husband will be home from work so I can pass over the baby to him for bottle feedings and I can take a break and pump instead.
The Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from being able to get in-person help from lactation support, yet I am still determined we will figure this out and it will be okay...I keep pushing through. My focus is one nursing session at a time, but it gets harder and harder. This isn’t how this should be, I think, breastfeeding is supposed to be special for bonding, but I am hating it. Finally hitting a breaking point, I can not provide one more feed like this. With a crushed heart, and a broken body, cracked, and bleeding, I start my breastfeeding journey, 2.0.
Providing breast milk to my son is a hill I was willing to die on, so I entered the all-consuming world of exclusive pumping. To me, it would be worth the additional work and the excessive amount of time if it meant that little buddy could continue to get my liquid gold.
I pumped 6-8 times every 24 hours. I learned how to pump and entertain two children while tied to the wall, ate my bodyweight in lactation cookies, drank an obscene amount of water daily, and learned the rhythm of pumping, washing, sanitizing, and storing bags of milk. It was hard, extremely time-consuming, but rewarding each time I would watch my baby guzzle down a bottle of MY milk.
I set a goal for myself, just to make it to a year. On his 16 month birthday, I pumped for the very final time. And today, looking in my freezer, we have 30 days of breastmilk remaining, which will get us about a week over 20 months. What an amazing accomplishment, when I didn’t know if we could even make it to six months in the beginning.
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My breastfeeding journey for both sons is a story of self-sacrifice, complete love, and dedication. Neither experience was easy or near anything I ever anticipated. I gave so much of myself, for them. But in the end, I would go through sleeplessness, tears, and pain all over again. As I watch this chapter close as the freezer stash dwindles, I feel great pride and accomplishment, but overarchingly a bittersweet feeling.