Then comes a baby in a baby carriage!
Then you have to feed it with your body,
And then your boobs don't join the party!
When asked if I was going to try breastfeeding, I obviously answered "of course!" because I'm trying to be #MomOfTheYear. However, the more research I did on the topic of feeding my baby, my answer quickly became "...I'm going to try!" because let's be honest guys, not all boobs are created equally. At least, not in my case.
According to medical science, 37 weeks is considered full term, so ideally, when I gave birth to my baby, all systems should have been a go, but no one told my boobs that. My boobs were not ready to be on. They were still chillin' on the bench in their warm-ups. Little lady was given Neosure, a high-caloric formula made specifically for premature/tiny babies, when she returned from the nursery and in my exhausted stupor, I was still determined to breastfeed, so I tried. But I didn't know what I was doing and little lady didn't really know what she was doing either. So, while I was in the hospital, I asked to speak a lactation consultant twice to see if I was breastfeeding correctly, and later, if I was using the breast pump correctly.
The first lactation consultant watched us together and commented that little lady's latch was good and that, while my body wasn't making milk yet, she was getting colostrum - the 'first milk', high in nutrients and antibodies, "liquid gold", the elixir of life. Except...nothing was happening. People kept telling me "don't worry, she's getting it, we promise" and I kept thinking "...no...she's...not...". I thought I was going crazy. The lactation consultant told me not to worry and to commence the feeding trifecta: attempt breastfeeding, then bottle feed, then pump. Every three hours.
The next day a second lactation consultant watched me use a breast pump and told me all the parts were the right size and after I described what it felt like, she confirmed that I was using the pump correctly. Once again, it felt like nothing was happening, and again, I was told "don't worry, it's coming" and "this will help get your breasts ready". Still, no one told my boobs to get it together.
When we went home, we were sent home with Neosure and I was told to continue the three step feeding process - breastfeed, then bottle feed, then pump. I was also told not to attempt breastfeeding for more than 5 minutes if baby girl was upset; they didn't want her to spend too much energy crying, potentially causing weight loss in the process. It was
At little lady's one-week pediatrician appointment, we found out she had successfully regained her birth weight and more - success! But not by my doing. It was all the Neosure. Still committed to giving breastfeeding the good college try, I scheduled a meeting with the lactation consultant on staff too (that would be a total of three lactation consultants if you were keeping track). She watched us latch, and showed me how to hold my boob with one hand and my baby with the other to ensure proper eating. When little lady started falling asleep, the lactation consultant used her hand to tickle little lady to wake her up, saying "haha ok sometimes you need to tickle your baby to wake them up to eat", and I was like "haha ok" because I realized that in order to make this breastfeeding thing work, I would need to miraculously grow a third hand because my two God-given hands were already busy.
I also told the lactation consultant about the crying and biting and frustration during breastfeeding, and she in turn asked me how much I was able to get when I pumped. Ohhhhh pumping. What a strange invention and feeding mechanism. There are all these settings and speeds and times that you have to play around with until you find the perfect setting for you to get your boobs to essentially 'empty' out so that it can fill back up and keep up with your baby's need for food. I read all the instructions and followed all the steps and a couple of days in - voila! - milk appeared. The two first lactation consultants were right!...But then, it was like someone turned the tap to the lowest setting and just left it there. I found myself spending an hour at the pump, only to get 1oz of milk total. "Surely it shouldn't be this hard," I thought to myself. "Maybe I'm doing something wrong." The lactation consultant thought it odd that I was only able to produce an ounce of milk total during my pumping sessions. She suggested I take fenugreek, a supplement that is supposed to increase milk production. So I took fenugreek. No change. More tears.
The thing about boobs is that once they think they're doing a good job, they let you know - by staying full and leaking - despite the fact that their version of 'good job' and your baby's need for a 'good job' are different. Although my supply never increased more than an ounce per pumping session (regardless of how long I pumped for), my boobs would feel like I had a gallon of milk to give; they would get full and I would still have to pump to alleviate the pain and tightness I was experiencing. After a month of pumping and getting no more than an ounce per pumping session, I decided enough was enough. I slowly weaned off a pumping session every couple of days, until I no longer needed to pump anymore. Now it feels like that was so long ago, but back then, it felt like the saga would never end and I would become an urban legend: "Have you heard that story about that poor woman who was found mummified to her rocker with her breast pump still attached, just 'whooshing' away?"
It kind of frustrates me that I didn't know more about what to do if my boobs didn't do what they were made to do when it came down to it. I thought I read all there was to read about breastfeeding and asked all the questions to ask about breastfeeding, but how was I supposed to know to research "what do I do if my boobs don't work?" There are plenty of articles and videos and opinions about how breast milk is better, how to boost your milk supply, how to get a better latch, what foods to avoid and how to take care of your breasts when they are engorged. In my opinion, however, there are not enough articles or blog posts or instagram mamas out there that tell you what it's like when your boobs don't work and how to handle all the feelings/thoughts/life changes associated with that. You know who I learned from when I found out my boobs didn't work? Other mamas whose boobs also didn't work, or didn't work enough. And boy do we have stories! They are stories of survival, of determination and - in many cases - there is an "it is what it is" air about our stories that really just scoffs at the"breast is best" slogan because, again, my breasts were not (at) the(ir) best. Could we just n o t with the whole 'breast is best' slogan? Because for some of us, it's hard and it's incredibly painful and it's taxing on us emotionally and physically and the last thing we need is a scientific article about how formula-fed babies don't have the best antibodies to fight off all the bad guys in the world and how our children will not be going to Harvard Law. Trust me, if I could, I would, but my boobs wouldn't and I couldn't. "Fed is best" is the slogan we should all be saying, and everyone needs to just be kinder to mamas when it comes to feeding them. Formula should also be free - but I digress. I am super grateful to have a husband and family members who encouraged me to take it easy in the breastfeeding department when they saw how taxing and frustrating it was for me. I knew I could stop when I needed to, but it is almost like I needed permission from other people to stop to feel confident about my decision. Thankfully I never felt any guilt about not breastfeeding, but I know that it is not the case for a lot of us. I threw guilt out the window a long time ago because 1. half the population (men) really should have no say in the conversation - and this includes male doctors/scientists/nurses and 2. my utmost concern is the health and growth of my baby and if baby needs to be on Neosure until she's 65 then Neosure is what she's gonna get.
Formula feeding has it perks, like how I am not the sole or only provider of sustenance for our first born child; my husband can get in on the action and I can sleep at night. It also has some cons though, like how expensive it can get, how it has contributed to her silent reflux, and how I cry internally every time we have to throw out formula because my baby didn't eat it and it's past its 'good by' time which, reminds me of another math problem - the one with the trains and what time they'll arrive at the station based on how fast they are moving: "If you make a bottle at 7am and it is good for 24 hours and can only be warmed up twice but your baby stops eating after 30 minutes and has a fit of rage that lasts for 20 minutes how much time do you have left for the bottle to still be usable before your baby is old enough to drive to a restaurant to get her own food?"
So we are over here poppin' bottles and getting fatter by the day (yay!). I'm glad we got this out of the way so that I'm prepared for this whenever/if ever round two comes. But before that ever happens, I'll need to sleep for a thousand years.
