Breast feeding... or not

Gracie is 10 weeks old now. She makes me feel happy and full and terrified and overwhelmed and at peace and petrified. You know. The feelings of being a mom. She’s in a tentative routine now that could change at any moment. She has been going to sleep these last couple of weeks between 7:30 and 9 p.m. and sleeping 6-8 hours before waking once and sleeping another 3-4 hours! The Internet says babies often sleep better when they’re bottle-fed. Oh yeah. She’s bottle-fed. It’s not because I didn’t want to breast feed. It’s because after she was born, I found out that my boobs were broken. 

I had a breast reduction at age 25. Not that you would notice because they got HUGE during pregnancy. Just so, so big. I remember the doctor who did the reduction saying she thought she had saved my milk ducts pretty well. I think maybe she saved like five of them or something (the Internet says each breast has 15-20 ducts). I wasn’t producing much colostrum and also, my nipples didn’t want to play nice. Gracie just couldn’t latch while in the hospital so the nurses made me pump every couple of hours to keep the milk flowing. 

Then began the saga of trying to breast feed. I tried getting her to latch, which involved many a session of me wrestling a screaming infant to my breast while mom assisted with positioning her on a pillow (did I say that my boobs were HUGE). I tried using a nipple guard, which is placed over the nipple that the infant should be able to suck on and through, but it always slipped and got dislodged. When I went to the baby’s first doctor’s visit after the hospital, the pediatrician asked me the same question every doctor liked to start with, “So how is breastfeeding going?” I told her I had had a breast reduction so it wasn’t going well so far. “Oh,” she said a little grimly. “I’ve been in this field for over 15 years and I have to say that only a handful of mothers who had surgery produced very much milk.” I teared up because it was heartbreaking to think I wouldn’t be one of those normal moms that breastfed and gave all their nutrients to their kids and decreased the risk of viruses and infections… All those things you learn about why you have to breast feed. She rushed on to say that it was OK to not breast feed, that my baby would still grow up perfectly fine and healthy, and she was sorry she’d put her foot in her mouth. Then she sent me home with about five cans of infant formula.

Two days after leaving the hospital, I attended a lactation support group. All the other moms sat there, their babies serenely suckling away in various holds at regular, modest sized breasts. Meanwhile, Mom and I wrestled a screaming baby to my pillow boobs, while trying to work with a nipple guard and a little tube of milk attached to my shirt, so that the baby would be sucking on something and learn to latch. The doctor walked around to check on the others, and then sat with me most of the time offering tips and advice. Mom and I were both sweaty and practically panting at the end and I left, traumatized and determined NEVER to go back. 

I continued to pump for the next few days (and put away the nipple guard and the stupid little tube thing). I only produced a couple tablespoons each time, which I added to Gracie’s bottle. There finally came a day when I said, “It’s OK to stop.”

I had to come to terms with not feeling like a failure as a woman and mother. And somehow not feeling guilty that I wasn’t giving my baby my life-giving milk. Then I talked to many women who had found that breast feeding wasn’t for them, or that they weren’t producing enough for their baby so they stopped. And I had to tell myself that it was OK to bottle feed. Plus, there are many benefits. My nipples aren’t sore. I can bring a bottle anywhere with me and not have to whip out a boob. I get more sleep at night. 

When Gracie woke up every couple hours, my mom routinely came to get her at 5 a.m. to give me a break and do her last feeding of the night, which made me feel not alone and safe because I had support. She’s better than a husband in some ways!

That first night out of the hospital, my parents went to bed and I sat there on the couch where I slept for the next couple of weeks (because I couldn’t sleep lying down yet due to the c-section). I stared at my newborn infant, who stared back at me with wide eyes, and I started crying because I was freaked out and scared and felt very alone that there was no one to share the burden with me, who had ownership in this with me. I wondered for the first time if I had made the right decision. Then my mom came down at around 2 a.m. and said she would take Gracie to bed with her and I worshiped at her feet in gratitude. I wasn’t alone. I have the best family in the world.