Breastfeeding...a four letter word, or...?

Breastfeeding...I am pretty sure I need to write about breastfeeding seeing as how I have three daughters and at least one of them is likely to have a breastfeeding experience in their future.

For starters the word breastfeeding has taken on a few additional meanings during the course of my childbearing years. It has meant; natural, difficult, painful, confusing, stress, anxiety, failure, sickness, bitterness, doubt, fear, more pain, more stress, more anxiety, more failure, challenging, progress, overcoming, success, joy, and love. Just to name a few.

Before I had kids, nobody EVER told me how incredibly hard it is to learn how to breastfeed your baby. I was not able to figure it out with my first baby and after a week of struggle I went to the bottle/formula. I tried again with my second, but because of my bad experiences with the first try, once I started having problems (at day 4), the anxiety hit hard and I stopped and was not open to getting any help. At all. I vowed if I had more children that I wouldn't even bother. Well...after four years you have the right to change your mind. But don't think I wasn't freaking out about the whole idea. I was.

And then she was born. She wanted to nurse all the time in the first week. I didn't think I was doing it very well, and got a little help in the hospital from one of the nurses. Because we were in a small hospital, I didn't have the opportunity to meet with their lactation consultant. Our first night back at the beach house was a huge struggle. I had a couple of small, bleeding sores, I was having trouble getting her latched on well, etc. Justin didn't want to see me go through the same thing again, so he went out and got some formula and a bottle. I tried to spoon feed her as I was directed. But she did have a couple of feedings with the bottle. I was pretty upset and scared. In the morning I was still really emotional and sleep deprived, but I got some help from my sister in law, Sarah who has successfully breastfed three kids now. It really did help, but what was most helpful was her not judging me at all. I wrote down each and every feeding those first couple of days out of the hospital. How long, which side, wet and poopy diapers. The whole deal.

When we got back home, I felt like Elisabeth was doing really well with the breastfeeding, as far as the actual mechanics of it. But when my midwife came to see us, she told me that because Elisabeth was a "late, pre-term baby" she was known as a "great pretender".  That she might trick me by looking like she knows what she is doing, but that it could go up and down a lot. I was also told the same thing by others in the lactation community. I don't think I really believed it at first because she seemed to be doing so well. But yes, the roller coaster did in fact begin. She started fighting and resisting and being very upset at the breast. I pumped and fed her with a bottle when she wouldn't nurse. At 10 days I thought it was over. I got really sick with mastitis. I pumped my brains out. Then there were the marathon nursing sessions. She would go for several hours at a time, switching from one side to the other. Then the fighting came back. She just seemed to get so upset when she tried to nurse.

By week three I thought our breastfeeding journey was over again. She kept resisting and struggling so much. I was worried about feeding her crappy formula with crappy ingredients (yes, I know I fed it to my first two kids), not to mention having to pay for it! So we did some goats milk formula that we made ourselves from a recipe a post partum doula had given to me.  At week three I was so depressed. I felt like an absolute failure. I really did. But I just kept trying with her. I kept putting her to the breast and sometimes she would go back to it. Then I would have hope. Then I would think it was over. Then I thought I would run out of milk, or not produce enough. Up and down the ride went. What happened to "the first two weeks are the hardest" that everyone kept telling me?

Here we are at 10 weeks and I feel like we are JUST now kind of getting the hang of it, but still not all the way there yet. There are still challenges at this stage, mostly consisting of the fact that since week 2 I have endured very unpleasant vasospasming of my nipples. I just didn't know for sure it was that until 8.5 weeks when I finally made an appointment with a lactation specialist. She thought that I was experiencing Reynaud's phenomenon and that Elisabeth's lip tie was contributing to the problem.

Now I was faced with the decision to have my baby go through a small surgical procedure to release her lip tie to hopefully improve the latch, to hopefully improve the vasospasms (which by the way cause awful burning of the nipples after nursing or pumping, that could last hours and by about two weeks ago was happening nearly all day long). I was so nervous about the procedure. I was worried I was going to put her through something really unpleasant and painful and that it wouldn't end up helping anyway. I decided to take her to my old boss who is an excellent oral surgeon. It's not something he does regularly, but he is someone I know and trust.  He looked at it and agreed to do it for me and it actually went really well. Much better than I was anticipating. I even stayed in the room while she had it done. Interestingly enough, that first night I noticed a huge decrease in the burning after nursing. And since having that done, her latch is improving all the time and the overall burning has decreased a lot! I am so thankful.

At 10 weeks I can finally say that I am enjoying being able to breastfeed my baby. Seriously, she is so cute when she nurses.  I am thankful that during all the huge struggles that I listened to the promptings I had that told me NOT to stop trying. I am very grateful for the Spirit that directs us each individually. I am thankful for the chance to find out that I really CAN breastfeed. I don't regret not trying harder with my other girls because I really feel like I was following my heart and doing what was best for us at those times. This time just happened to be different.

I can't tell you the amount of prayers that I offered during these first two months specifically about breastfeeding. Very specific prayers that were answered each and every time. Again, I am incredibly grateful for Heaven's help.

I CAN DO HARD THINGS!