Breastfeeding

About six years ago I attended a Doula training during which I learned about the "breast crawl"- When a baby is born and placed on the mother's stomach, it has the instinctive ability to crawl up to the breast and latch on without any help. We watched a few videos of this seeming phenomenon, and I was convinced that it was the only way; someday when I had babies they would crawl up my stomach and latch on and breastfeeding would be beautiful and perfect from the very first hour of life outside my womb.

I'm not sure anything is ever really beautiful and perfect from the get go, and Harrison's and my breastfeeding relationship certainly was not.

Harrison was born after 61 hours of labor in a way that was very different from my hopeful birth plan. There was a lot of activity around us for a while as we were skin to skin for his first moments of life, I was exhausted from the intensity of the past few days, and Harrison was likely a bit groggy since I ended up with an epidural (and who knows what else they pumped in me.) There was no breast crawl, and hardly a mention of breastfeeding for a while. I have no recollection of the moment Harrison first latched, or of any of the first moments we were trying to latch. No teary-eyed picture of my newborn and I bonding in that way at all (which was part of the beautiful and perfect fantasy.)

My first memory of breastfeeding is of a few hours after Harrison was born, and the nurse saying to me "I don't usually like to offer a nipple shield before a baby is 24 hours old but ..." And so it was with that help that Harrison and I began breastfeeding, with a piece of plastic between us. I so did not want it, but I was offered no other advice, and my baby needed to eat. (I had a small knowledge of breastfeeding from a class I took before Harrison was born, but I don't think anything can prepare you for the application of that knowledge when everything is brand new and you are too out of it to make conscious decisions.)

We left the hospital the next day but not before the hospital lactation consultant visited with us, per my request because I wanted to nurse without a nipple shield. I remember only two things from the time she spent with us - 1. She had a lot of things to say and I felt like I was being talked at rather than helped. And 2. She asked if she could put a drop of sugar water on my breast to encourage Harrison to latch. After an hour of being talked at I learned nothing, and Harrison hadn't latched, and we went home with the nipple shield.

One of our midwives came to check on us the next day and everything looked great aside from Harrison being slightly jaundiced, and that I was still sorting out how to nurse him, even with the shield. So it was suggested I reach out to a lactation support company who would send someone the next day to both check his bilirubin levels (for the jaundice) and help us out with nursing.

That visit was an interesting one. The LC brought a very specific nursing pillow with her and talked me through the steps of nursing Harrison with the pillow. To my request of getting rid of the shield, she said I'd likely be able to stop using it in a few weeks. Looking back, it was another person talking at me and giving generic answers to my questions. Towards the end of her visit she started talking about how she was running late for her next client. I was feeling good enough at that point and she left in a hurry. But then Jer and I were left with needing to go out and buy more things (the very specific nursing pillow that was an important part of the only way she showed me to nurse), and while my post-partum brain thought that I had just gotten a lot of help, after processing through it a week later I realized it had been mostly a waste of time. My questions hadn't been answered and my thoughts hadn't been heard.

Fast-forward almost two weeks later, at another follow up appointment with our midwife when we found out Harrison hadn't gained any weight for a week. Our midwife wrote that he was "failure to thrive" and made sure I reached out to another lactation consultant immediately.

Ugh. The heaviness of that scenario was rough. I felt like all I was doing was nursing, it felt awkward each time and I was starting to dread him needing to eat, I had been "helped" by three different people (who, in hindsight, were part of the reason he wasn't nursing well), and I just didn't know what to do.

The one thing I do love, looking back on the messiness of that time, is that never once did someone mention a bottle or formula. It never even crossed my mind, and I am so thankful to have had people around me who wanted to see Harrison and I work out our nursing relationship and knew that we could, and so in their support they never mentioned an alternative to breastfeeding, instead they talked about a plan for Harrison and I to better learn how to do it. I see far too often formula pushed as the "only" option- given as an assumption that if a baby is not gaining weight, Mama isn't producing enough milk- while in reality it is not quite as common as it seems for mothers to not make enough milk for their babies. I wish that instead of formula being the very first thing talked about, mainstream advice would first look to checking for lip and tongue ties, encourage nursing on demand, discourage sleeping through the night, check how efficiently the baby is getting milk, and through all that giving mothers the tools they need to have the correct milk supply and the confidence that they ARE enough to feed their babies. And even after all that, I wish more women were made aware of donor milk and/or supplemental nursing systems if they do end up needing to search out an alternative. My issue is not with formula, but with the lack of support and options given to mothers in mainstream pediatric practices. If I hadn't been seen by my "crunchy" midwives, and if I hadn't already had a little bit of knowledge surrounding breastfeeding, I was in the perfect situation to be given formula for Harrison and left to my own devices after that- and this is AFTER being helped by three different women who's jobs were to help Harrison and me establish breastfeeding. I am so thankful that the support I had in the process was always "How can we help breastfeeding be established better so that Harrison is eating enough?"

It was with that support that I (finally) reached out to a friend who is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Why she wasn't the first person we talked to is beyond me, I wasn't thinking clearly those days and other people were making decisions for me.

Kim came to our home the very next day, with a softness and gentle energy I hadn't yet felt by anyone else in her field. She took one look at the nipple shield and told me to put it in the trash. She watched me struggle with the nursing pillow for all of 10 seconds and then we set it aside for good. She checked Harrison out. She checked me out. We grabbed a bunch of pillows from our bed and she showed me and Jeremy how to use them to get Harrison to nurse in a variety of positions. She showed me how to actively help Harrison nurse, and got him to latch immediately. He was gulping down milk so fast and strong we could hear it hitting his stomach. We chatted, and I was listened to. As questions arose, they were answered. Harrison and I were looked at as two individuals learning how to do something together in a unique way best suited only to us. She left by showing me how to side-lie nurse in bed, Harrison next to me, me in the middle, and Jeremy being an active participant by cuddling as the big spoon. There was a calmness in the air and for the first time in two weeks, I had a bit of confidence that everything was going to be okay.

Kim came back two days later to weigh Harrison and was looking for a one ounce weight gain. He had gained THREE ounces and was already starting to form the double chin that has stuck with him now for the past year.

And everything was okay after that, though not to say it was all rainbows and butterflies. I was stressed out for the better part of the next few weeks, tracking all his feeds, listening for his gulps, and being very hands on when he nursed, as he still needed a lot of support to be efficient with it. I was exhausted, my breasts were sore, and I was constantly worried that he wasn't getting enough. But time released the fears, little by little, and nursing became easier and easier, and at some point it became second nature and neither of us had to exert much effort. I was finally in the place I wanted to be with breastfeeding.

Harrison and I have continued to have a wonderful nursing relationship. He exclusively nursed for close to seven months, and we started slowly on solids- giving him the opportunity to learn flavors and textures, rather than looking at the food as a source of nutrition- so for almost his entire first year he thrived on mostly breast milk. These days he is obsessed with eating solids and nurses noticeably less, even turning down the opportunity at times. But he still nurses frequently at night and nap time, and I am eager to continue that through at least age two, and am hopeful that he will still ask for the occasional feed a year or two or three after that.

first birthday nursing snuggles

I am thankful that while learning to breastfeed had its struggles and frustrations, the only "problem" we had was bad advice. Harrison simply wasn't able to nurse effectively with that darn nipple shield. I am doubly thankful we were finally able to find good advice to get us on track for our positive nursing experience. I know there are so many issues that women face in their breastfeeding journeys that can take a lot more effort, time, and intervention to fix; I sincerely hope that mainstream knowledge will start to take a turn and focus more on how to help new Mamas and babies efficiently nurse and that more positive breastfeeding support will be available for everyone who needs it.

I will breastfeed here or there, I will breastfeed anywhere