Boobies on the Brain.

Yesterday a lot of people on various social networking sites that I frequent were doing a lot of talking about breastfeeding. I have been breastfeeding Archer for 25 months and since it was being spoken of yesterday, I started to really think about breastfeeding and my experience with it. I realized that a lot of the time I come off as a passionate breastfeeder, which I am. However, that was not always the case.

I did not breastfeed my daughter. In fact, I would be giving myself way too much credit if I said that I tried for a week. If I am completely honest about it, I think I only lasted a grand total of two days. The fact of the matter is that I had absolutely no support and I had a limited amount of knowledge about breastfeeding. Even though I went into motherhood with the desire to breastfeed, I don't think I could have named a single benefit of breastmilk vs. formula. I honestly thought that they were the same, except that breastfeeding was harder and you actually had to hold your baby when you did it.

I remember when my daughter was born and I would ask for help getting her latched on to my breast. It hurt terribly and she would just scream. I felt like if I could just get her on correctly, we would be good to go. The problem was that I gave birth to her on a Saturday. Apparently there are no lactation consultants in the hospital on Saturdays or Sundays. The busy nurses would come in and throw her on for me, but it never felt right nor did they actually show me what to do. We were discharged before we could speak to one and after that (being as I was 19, naive, scared, and alone) I thought WIC was the only resource I had. The ladies at WIC were not very encouraging. They seemed to have limited knowledge and the lactation consultant from WIC was rude, condescending, and seemed too busy for me.

Needless to say, by the time she was a week old she was exclusively formula fed. At the time, everyone I knew formula fed. I come from a town with a lot of teen moms and so even at 19, I did have a lot of mom friends. I cannot name a single one who breastfed past 8 weeks and even those who went 8 weeks were supplementing through that time. Because of this, I had no regrets. I thought that formula must be the right way to go because if breastfeeding really was any different I would surely know and surely more people would be doing it if it were better. That was the end of that, for the time being.

Fast forward about a year and a half. In June of 2007 I became pregnant with my son. My mother in law would always talk about how she breastfed both of her boys and she was always very strongly in favor of breastfeeding. Her daughter also breastfed her daughters for a year apiece. These were the first two women that I met who were completely pro-breastfeeding. Although neither of them gave me a lot of information, knowing them prompted me to look into it. Around that time, I also became a member of Cafemom (an online social network for moms) and I befriended several women who were "lactivists." They were extremely encouraging and supportive of me in my determination to nurse my son (I also credit them with turning me on to cloth diapering and most aspects of attachment parenting, but that's a different story).

Because of them, I began reading about breastfeeding. I also hired a doula (for other reasons), which wound up being a critical decision in regards to my breastfeeding relationship. I read everything that I could. I watched YouTube videos about breastmilk and breastfeeding. The amazing thing was that I was more interested and impacted by what I learned about the benefits of breast milk than I was with the tips and how-to information about breastfeeding. I could not believe the disservice I had done to my daughter.I could not believe that I had deprived her of the nutrients and I could not believe that I had deprived us both of the bond that breastfeeding encourages. I was devastated and sometimes I still am.

See the thing is, I had a lot of trouble bonding with my daughter. Now that she is 4, we are good to go. She is my little girl and I love her to pieces. But when she was between birth and 1 year, I was basically indifferent to her. I knew she was my responsibility and I took good care of her. I thought she was cute and I enjoyed dressing her up, but I could have taken or left motherhood. I was pretty detached and it was really hard for me to get to the point where I truly felt like a mother. On top of the issues that I had with bonding, my daughter was sick all of the time. She was born in October and by March she had had croup, RSV, several colds, and 3 ear infections. When I was reading about the benefits of breastfeeding, I felt like I had suddenly put my finger on something I had been searching to explain for almost 2 years. I had always wondered why I was not a "natural" at motherhood. I wondered what I was doing wrong that contributed to my child being sick all of the time. Well, there I had it. My problems could have been solved by breastfeeding. I believe that they would have, but I say could because I know that there are no guarantees.

However, I think that I affirmed my suspicions after I gave birth to my son. Immediately after he was born, my doula firmly expressed to the hospital staff that it was my wish to nurse immediately. She put her foot down and demanded that no one do a thing until I had fed him. He was placed in my arms (by the very disgruntled, male nurse) and our journey began. My doula showed me how to hold his head and how to cup my breast as I guided him to my nipple. He latched on immediately and things were going great. Then, my wonderful doula uttered the magic words that changed my life. She looked at me and said, "Now what you should be feeling is tug, tug, tug rather than pinch, pinch, pinch." Now, to you those may sound like just words. But to me, they were magic. I felt tug, tug, tug. And I also remembered, at that moment, that with my daughter I had felt pinch, pinch, pinch. At the time, since the nurse had latched her on, I figured that was how it was supposed to feel. Tug, tug, tug had never even crossed my mind. I had even taken the hospital's breastfeeding class before I had my daughter and they had spent so much time warning us to expect pain that I just figured pinch, pinch, pinch was normal.

So, here we are today. My son is 25 months old and he is still nursing. You know why? Because every time I felt the pinching, I would pop him off and then relatch him the way that my doula had taught me. She was the key. She helped me. She practiced what she preached and taught me what to do. I feel that I was abandoned by the medical system, the first time around. I feel that they encouraged breastfeeding for show, but they could really care less what any mother does. Why else would they latch my baby on for me and then leave the room without asking if I was ok? Why else would they tell me to call a lactation consultant if I was having trouble, yet send me home with endless formula coupons and samples? The fact of the matter is, that I was the victim of a very sad system. This is a system that has come to rely too heavily on formula manufacturers. This is a system that has gotten too commercial. I was a victim, my daughter was a victim, and I hope that just by writing this I will help to ensure that someone else will not be a victim.