Below is an excerpt written on Monday, September 20th that will catch you up on much of our breastfeeding journey thus far. I continued to write throughout the week as things progressed but I’ll save that for next time, to keep you in suspense! JK – just keeping things digestible.
Monday, September 20th
Welp! I have to say, I’m happy I decided to launch this newsletter.
Because today is a horrible day, it’s been a series of horrible days, I barely slept last night, and yet this is still the thing I want to, need to do most: to write.
I have to think that if I hadn’t started, made the commitment, I wouldn’t feel the same right now. I think I’d feel tired and lazy and sorry for myself. Probably, I’d turn on another episode of Chesapeake Shores and hide under the covers.
(For anyone who may be going through a tough time, I highly recommend this extremely corny but highly therapeutic TV show. It is a Hallmark show, which is probably enough said.)
But no, I made the commitment and instead of something that is stressing me out, like why did I do this when I barely have time to brush my teeth (hasn’t happened yet) or take a shower (also hasn’t happened yet, but that’s because my solution for showering these days is to do so at night after V has gone to bed) which I won’t lie, I was a little worried about! 😬 somehow instead this commitment is feeding me, giving me purpose, pushing me to do the thing that makes my soul feel good.
Is there a creative practice you can commit to? Just some food for thought. If you feel like you have no time, I hope this can offer some inspiration. Maybe it’s more possible than you think? Because I know I have no time, yet I am still doing this. The laundry/teeth brushing/dinner figure-outing is going to have to wait.
It’s a full moon in Pisces today, which feels appropriate given where we are, at what feels like a culmination point in my breastfeeding journey with baby V. I was listening to “The Weekly Weather” this morning and felt it when Anne said that this week would be just that, a culmination in a situation we’ve been experiencing, one where we last week we thought we had found a solution to the problem and this week we are learning that we didn’t.
Ugh! Are you freaking kidding me, I thought. This is exactly how I’m feeling after V had a minor but still traumatic (for me, anyway) procedure in her tiny, perfect mouth – one that we hoped might improve her feeding, but has shown no signs of doing so just yet.
“I know these past couple days have been rough, very out of character for her, but isn’t it weird how she’s also been the cutest and happiest looking she’s ever been?” my husband asked me as we both stared down at her in her bouncer seat, now flashing her sweetest smiles at us, as he held me on the couch this morning. I was wearing nothing but my underwear and unclipped nursing bra (this means boobs completely out if you don’t know) because that’s how I ran downstairs with her for a bottle after she refused my left breast by scream-crying with it in hanging just out of her mouth.
Breastfeeding has looked nothing like how I envisioned it. So badly I have yearned to meet this perfect picture in my head; to have this natural, beautiful, symbiotic experience with my baby.
Yet instead I’ve been met with a frustrated baby, a baby who desperately wants my milk but has a lot of trouble getting it. She has what the professionals refer to as an inefficient suck, a likely result of her being born in a position called compound presentation, meaning her hand was on her head with her elbow pointing out, not unlike the Karl Malone poster my husband had pinned to his wall as a kid.
This meant that we had to use a nipple shield since her first week on planet Earth, which is a little clear silicone nipple that goes over your own to help the baby latch. It’s not supposed to be a long-term solution, but it made breastfeeding possible for us so I really didn’t mind using it, for however long it would take. I kept waiting for Violet to get bigger, 6 weeks or 8 weeks or 2-and-a-half months, or whatever age it was that people would assure us that things magically began to improve for them in their own breastfeeding journeys, once the baby got bigger and stronger. Surely by 12 weeks, or the three-month mark, when the fourth trimester officially ends – by this point, breastfeeding should definitely be working, if it’s going to?
So I kept with the nipple shield, even though it was less than ideal in moments, like those 3am feeds when it would inevitably disappear into the bed somewhere leaving you desperately groping around for it in the dark as your baby screams, or when breastfeeding in public, because there’s just no way to be discreet about breastfeeding with a nipple shield.
Then somewhere around a week ago, we suddenly stopped using it. Shockingly, V made the decision for us. One morning she just decided she didn’t want it anymore, a point she made clear by wailing at my breast and refusing to put her mouth over it.
Even more shockingly, she drank over 5 ounces from me in that feed, more than she ever had before (I knew this because I was weighing her before and after every feed ever since I discovered that her weight percentile had dropped pretty dramatically), and with an ease that I’ve since only experienced with her a handful of times.
But – life with a baby! things never stay the same! – things went downhill again from there, because now that I was weighing her so diligently this meant I was feeding her much more, which means pumping much more to make sure she was getting enough to eat. And with all of this pumping I was finding myself barely able to keep up with how much milk she actually needed. And this is the other problem with an inefficient suck, that your milk supply goes down, because when your baby isn’t fully draining you your body gets the signal that it should make less milk.
This made everything even harder because what I was noticing was that V would only successfully breastfeed when my breasts were super-full, basically engorged, as that milk was easier for her to get. As the day went on past morning into the afternoon and evening, when a mother’s milk supply naturally decreases, it became impossible for us to breastfeed.
For a while I was triple-feeding, meaning I would put her on the breast, she would drink until she got tired and began to cry, at which point I would take her off to pump so that I could feed her the rest through a bottle. Emotionally though this took its toll on me. It’s hard to describe the type of primal pain you feel when your baby cries at your breast and you are unable to feed her naturally.
At that point my lactation consultant advised me to only breastfeed Violet for the feeds where it is enjoyable for the both of us, which meant just the earlier morning feeds. This meant I could spend my afternoons doing “power hour” – no, not the drinking game but an abominable act designed to increase your milk supply where you pump for 20 minutes, rest for 10, pump for 10, rest for 10, pump for 10.
Because so much of this is affected by my stress levels, too. There are times when Violet is at my breast and she starts getting upset, lightly whacking me with balled fists, tugging my nipple and writhing her tiny body in frustration, and then I notice my own body contorted in some completely unnatural position as I do my best to position her without the use of my hands which are busy massaging and squeezing my breasts to get every drop I can for her – and I have to stop and remind myself to breathe, to close my eyes and take a deep breath and try to find peace, to visualize the milk flowing out of me and into her, and then, somewhat magically, this will result in a let-down.
I have to ask myself, is this enjoyable for either of us? Who am I doing this for, really? She seems happier when I pump and give her the bottle. But the problem is, pumping just isn’t a sustainable option for me. It amazes me, all of the mothers who exclusively pump, who have no problem doing it. I give them so much credit! And of course pumping is a welcomed options for many things, like building a stash of milk for the freezer or having a few much-needed drinks, but the life of an exclusive pumper is not the life for me.
Because let me be frank: I fucking hate pumping. I hate sitting in front of my baby as she bounces away happily in her Babybjorn, staring longingly at my breasts which are attached to a pulsating machine that aggressively sucks my milk through plastic tubes, cruelly reminding me of the fact that I cannot naturally feed my child. I hate pumping when I could be holding her; I hate that it makes everything take twice as long. I hate that my self-worth (and overall mood) seems to directly correlate to the amount I milk I produce.
I pumped 4+ ounces? On top of the world! Things are looking up!
2 or 3, and I’m depressed again. Hopeless. Failing. This is never going to work.
Therefore, for me, getting breastfeeding to work at the actual breast feels like the only way forward. And while things seem to have improved in some respects (like the loss of the nipple shield! RIP 🙏 ) I am simultaneously feeling at the end of my rope. With V getting closer and closer to that 12-week mark, whatever dreams I’ve had of things naturally resolving themselves are feeling less and less likely.
Yet I’m just not ready to give up. I want to see where I can get with my milk supply, or if her procedure (lip- and cheek-tie revisions ICYWW) did anything at all; maybe we’ll have some luck at our cranial sacral therapy appointment tomorrow? Trying acupuncture at the end of the week, too.
It feels like the beginning of the end, but I’m trying to stay positive. Wish us luck. 💜