Breastfeeding: What They Don't Tell You, the Beginning

Breastfeeding: What they don't tell you - Oh let me count the ways...

My Experience - dedicated to Jen, my best friend and breastfeeding advisor.

BF is so trendy now. "Breast is Best" is all I heard and endured while pregnant from random strangers at the grocery store to books and websites and medical professionals. It's like you're even afraid to admit if you're thinking of other options because then you'd subject yourself to 20 min. of lecturing from strangers at the checkout line. The guilt starts immediately upon learning you're pregnant, continues into "Bottles - NO!" from the Lactation consultant who taught my BF class, and finally into Motherhood. Your friends are doing it, society encourages it, but did anyone actually consider Mommy? The person who has to do it?

That said, I am breastfeeding successfully right now. But it was ROUGH start. I will never judge anyone who isn't breastfeeding because it's not for everyone depending on your life situation and depends on your nipples, body and baby. The three most important pieces of advice I received were:
"BUY LANOLIN and take it to the hospital with you"
"Give BF 6 weeks which is the length of postpartum"
"Everyday you've put the worst behind you."

Dylan was born in the evening and no lactation consultant was on duty til the next day at the hospital. Which meant I fed him all night winging it, despite the American Pediatric book on BF, the BF class I took and practiced with Dolls, the online videos I watched a male Dr. teaching (who hasn't a clue what it feels like. I hate male Drs. who lecture that the pain is from the wrong latch - I want to take his nipples and connect it to a powerful hose and ask him how that latch feels.) The Lactation Consultant came the next morning, took my boob in her hands and pressed baby's head on quickly and aggressively. Whoa. but I got the idea.

Books say "Colostrum is enough" and "Colostrum is liquid gold"... Apparantly liquid gold was not enough for my crying baby and the nurses suggested Formula. WHAT?! Formula!? The horror of it. As if it was a 4-lettered prohibited word. Noooo! Everyone says no forumla if you want to be successful at BF. Took 4 nurses to convince me that he was still hungry and I was upset as they gave us a bottle of Similac and my husband fed baby. Sure enough baby was hungry because after downing some of it, he stopped crying and fell asleep. My advice: Don't get stressed out and worried what baby eats or how. As long as he eats that's what's important.

After 4 days in the hospital from a C-section proved that by the time I got home, the nipple pain and soreness settled in. They felt beaten...bloody, sore, sensitive. Lanolin was slathered on around the clock, showers were painful, feeding times felt like torture. How can my nipples heal when they need to feed a being w/the most powerful suck, all the time? In the meantime we guiltly supplemented w/formula. Wait - what about needing baby to suck to build my milk supply? What about nipple confusion? Am I not producing enough milk? Am I not sufficient to care for my baby? In the end, the pain and tears and exhaustion wore me down and I realized I needed to heal and try again. In addition, BF is a like a cruel joke because babies aren't as full as long like they are on formula. So they wake up more often.

Since I couldn't see how much milk Dylan was eating, it stressed me out even more. Was he eating enough? My milk didn't start coming into til day 6 because I had a C-section. Even after, there were days I cried in the shower over not being an adequate mommy cause I didn't feel like I had any milk. About week 2-3 finally, my breasts were huge and beautiful! Literally - they were huge, round, standing up - looked like I had perfect implants those first few weeks. My advice: Remember what the Dr. said - count the number of poopie and wet diapers. You may not be able to see what goes in, but what goes in must come out.

I rented a hospital pump to help but my nipples were even too sore to be pumped. I don't care what people say about "bad latches," your nipples are going to be sore period. If people only sympathized and admitted it, then new mommys wouldn't feel bad about it like it was their fault. During the first 2 weeks I developed 2 blebs (ya, WTF is that?) and a plugged milk duct. Blebs are like milk blisters or pimples on your areola - painful! I called my OB, they said talk to the pediatrician, who referred me back to the OB. Nobody to help! I took a needle to the bleb myself (according to a website) and just ended up poking 3 holes in myself. I surfed the net, called BF nazis - La Leche members, called the hospital Lactation Consultant. Seriously the men and people out there who think BF is "natural" should grow boobs and BF a newborn. It really isn't something that just happens naturally. Until you are in sync, babies are learning from you as you are learning from them.

By 6 weeks BF was going much smoother and now my monkey is 11 weeks and it is super easy. I truly don't have nipple pain anymore and I don't have to do that "C" hold or relatch him. I watch TV and let him relatch himself and figure it out. By now, his mouth has gotten bigger and he knows what to do. . My nipples will shoot milk across the room like I read about it..finally. Course I've now shot him in the face and in my own eye.

I am BF exclusively and he won't even take a bottle of even my pumped milk. It is a bond that I treasure. I see my baby in different forms that nobody else gets to see. Like the way his eyes roll into the back of his head purely from the pleasure of eating off of me and the way he falls into a peaceful sleep on my breast. The most amazing part about BF is that I've shared my body with a baby for 39 weeks and continue to share my body after he is born. When I see the fat rolls on Dylan I feel like a superhero because I did this...I made those rolls.

If you get to BF successfully whether it be for 1 week, 1 month or 1 yr. Congratulations. I truly believe a woman needs all the BF support she can get. I couldn't do it w/out help or advice from others. This is only my experience. Some women have it easier, some harder. If it doesn't work out, or you never decide to BF - don't worry about it! As a new parent, you have the right to parent however you wish and there will be lots of other opportunities to share strong bonds w/your child. BF is not a be all, end all. If it only part of the broader spectrum of things.