The trials and tribulations of breastfeeding.

I read an amazing blog post by Mooshinindy just recently called: The one about me not being able to breastfeed. Some of the things written really hit the nail on the head for me and my experiences with breastfeeding...well, my attempt to anyway!

"Many bodies out there don’t produce what comes naturally to so many others. Some bodies don’t produce enough tears, some bodies don’t produce enough insulin, some bodies don’t produce enough estrogen, some bodies don’t produce sweat, some bodies don’t produce sperm and some bodies don’t produce babies.
Just because someone has all the parts doesn’t mean they all work in harmony (or at all.)
But a body that doesn’t produce breastmilk is the only one that is judged both openly and silently on a fairly regular basis."

I attempted to breastfeed with both of my children.

With Tyler, I was very young (19). When I first held him in the hospital, it was the first time I had ever held a baby in my entire life - so needless to say I was crapping myself with fear. It was like trying to drive a manual truck in a forgein country, when you have never even driven a car!

I wanted to breastfeed, so I tried. He did not latch for the first few days as he was full of mucus and was so out of it. I spent those days trying to at least express but nothing seemed to be happening. On about day 4, T was latching...for about 2 seconds!! Then when no milk was coming through instantly, so he would scream and refuse to go back on. He was not eating. So we had to suppliment with formula.

The next day my milk came through quickly - so quickly I ended up with mastitis - but I had no idea. T finally started chomping (thats right, not sucking, chomping) and it was so painful, my nipples were a mess and they were bleeding. I started waking with chills and fevers when T was about 7 days old, but being so young I had just assumed it was probably normal after birth. But I was wrong. The next day I couldnt move, my body seized. My partner was at work and I couldnt get ahold of him. My little sister (16 at the time) had to come and look after a newborn, while my other sister took me to the hospital.

After painkillers and lots of pumping the mastitis started to reduce. I was so shaken by the whole thing. I had terrible baby blues and just cried and cried. I felt like a failure. I decided I wanted to try and keep feeding, but everytime T latched, my nipples would just bleed and I would sob in pain. It certainly wasnt the beautiful bonding experience I thought it would be!

I tried to pump, feed that to him, and then pump again for his next feed. He was an awful reflux baby who would take a good hour to burp - so by the time that was done, and I had gotten him to sleep, and then expressed, I had about an hours sleep before he was back up.

I couldnt maintain this. Oh how badly I wanted to, but I couldnt. My mum tried to encourage me to keep going but I was done. Drained...and very SORE.

But I finally had freedom! S was able to help me more, I was able to sleep more. We were all happy, full, and no longer crying in pain!

With Brody, I had a more successful experience, and we were exclusively breastfeeding for the first 3 weeks. I did come up againt mastitis again but we got through it. The thing that brought this to an abrupt unexpected end was the death of the most important person in my life, my mother. I will blog about this in my next post.

LOVE & LIGHT