I always planned to nurse my children. I researched how to make it happen, understanding the benefits of breastfeeding and recognizing that many women struggle in those first weeks and months. Just because it’s a natural process doesn’t mean it’s easy or that it comes naturally. I did everything I could during my pregnancy and birth to promote a successful breastfeeding relationship – limited interventions during pregnancy (one ultrasound), home birth with no interventions or epidural, immediate skin to skin after birth, over an hour of alone time immediately after birth with just my baby and my husband, ample skin to skin in the first few days, weeks, and months. I was prepared.
So imagine my devastation when my son never latched.
After his birth, he came to my chest, and he didn’t leave for hours. My midwife who is also one of the best IBCLC lactation consultants in the area tried a few tricks to get my son to latch, but he wasn’t very interested. He cried as we tried, but she told us not to worry because some babies just come out a little tired from the journey of birth and don’t nurse right away. Before leaving our house, she instructed us on how to proceed overnight. She gave us ideas for positions to encourage nursing, but she also recommended resting and just continuing skin-to-skin. While not ideal for baby or mama’s milk supply, a baby can last 12-24 hours after birth without nursing so we didn’t need to panic. Our birth team left with the gentle reminder that our son would likely wake up overnight every two hours wanting to nurse (side note – he didn’t. We were blessed with a great sleeper which was actually quite terrifying for us that first night!).
Coming off of the high from birth, I was nervous that he hadn’t latched immediately. All the beautiful ideas I had of this immediate bond and connection with my child didn’t happen. The encouragement and comfort of my birth team and husband telling me it happens sometimes gave me some peace, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
The following morning, my midwife texted to check in and see how the night went. With my son still not latching, the next step was manual expression so we could get my son food. She sent us videos to teach us techniques for the best manual expression, collection, and feeding all the while reminding us to keep trying to bring him to the breast. So there I was, less than 18 hours postpartum literally milking myself and feeding my son from a spoon. It was not at all what I pictured. Everytime we attempted to nurse, my son screamed on the approach. It’s not that he wouldn’t latch; he couldn’t even approach the breast without tears and screams. For a mama who said throughout pregnancy on many occasions that there was no way in heck her baby would ever take a bottle and even hid her pump to remove the temptation, this was truly a nightmare.
We continued the manual extraction (yes, we….my hands were exhausted, and my husband stepped in many times to help with the milking. Things I never expected in marriage….) throughout the first 24 hours, but we soon added the electric pump for stimulation to encourage my milk supply. I was seeming to produce well, and our son was getting plenty of colostrum. A newborn’s stomach is the size of a cherry, so it doesn’t take much to fill up! Our routine became an attempt at the breast, hand express while my husband fed whatever was expressed until our son was full, and then pump both sides for 15 minutes to encourage supply.
Within a few days of this routine, the round the clock feeding and constant screaming at my breast was wearing. But we didn’t stop trying. In fact, we buckled down and looked into more options. When our son was 5 days old, we went to the chiropractor. Sometimes, birth can be traumatic on a baby’s little body, and that can lead to nursing struggles. We also found severe tongue and lip ties, but they couldn’t be corrected until we had some bodywork done because our son’s jaw was very stiff. We tried craniosacral therapy, spoon feeding and SNS, nipple shields, and saw multiple lactation consultants.
For five weeks – five VERY long weeks – we would try him on the breast, try him with the nipple shield, resort to paced bottle feeding so he’d get his nutrition, and then I’d pump. Every. Two. Hours. By the time I finished pumping and cleaning my parts, it was time to start the process over again. The stress was overwhelming, especially trying to balance this process with family wanting to visit. To be honest, the first five weeks of my son’s life were not good. All I wanted was to hold my baby, nurse him, and love on him. Any slight interest he had shown for the breast when he was a newborn was basically gone, and I was devastated.
Teetering on the edge of postpartum depression, I knew in my gut what we were doing wasn’t working. The process wasn’t sustainable, but I reluctantly recognized that one part of it was: the pumping and bottlefeeding. At 5 weeks, my husband and I made the decision to exclusively pump. The thought had been in the back of my mind for a while, but verbalizing it and agreeing to it was the biggest relief. Allowing us to stop triple feeding (attempting to feed him at the breast, feeding him with the bottle, and then feeding the pump) was a welcome relief.
Still, I was scared my son wouldn’t develop a connection to me. Many of our first months were filled with anxiety and self-doubt for me. Sure, he was getting my breastmilk, but he didn’t know where it came from, especially since my husband did a lot of the bottle feeding. I built it up in my mind that nursing was the only way a mother and baby could bond. If only I had opened my eyes to the reality in front of me – the reality that my son and I played every time I pumped, the reality that he snuggled into me when he needed comfort, the reality that I housed him for nine months and that gave us a connection already – I may have spent more time enjoying my son rather than reliving the hurt of not having a successful nursing relationship.
I sit here writing this post nearly a year and a half postpartum, and it still brings me to tears. The fact that I was never able to nurse my son still hurts very much. While I know we did literally everything we could and tried for longer than maybe we should have, there will always be part of me that questions it. There will always be a part of me that wonders if we stopped too soon, if there were stones left unturned that may have been the magic cure, or if I did something wrong to cause his disinterest in nursing.
This wasn’t the journey I expected, but it’s the one we took. It was lonely, isolating, monotonous, and heartbreaking. It was also encouraging, fulfilling, and it made me proud of what I could accomplish. The pain of what could have been will never go away, but I force myself to focus on the good that came out of the whole thing. First and foremost, I was able to exclusively breastfeed my son. The method was not ideal, but the outcome was still an exclusively breastfed baby. I pumped for 324 days. I pumped 18431 oz (or about 144 gallons) of liquid gold, spent at least 907.3 hours equivalent to 37.8 days or about 5.4 weeks attached to my pump, and donated 4221 oz donated to at least 11 babies in 5 different states (I lost track of how many babies I was giving to). I pumped in bathrooms, on planes, in cars, at funerals, and more. We still have a deep freezer full of milk that my son is very slowly working through, so I will likely be able to donate more. I was also able to help countless mamas with questions about supply, pumping techniques, and storage of milk over the past 17 months. I gained so much respect and understanding of the struggles most women face with nursing, and I was humbled by the path G-d put us on. I firmly believe the idea that “breast is best,” but I have come to understand that it’s not always that simple.
**The biggest thank you to my incredible husband. As hard as this all was for me to handle, I truly believe his side was even harder. He handled it with grace and compassion beyond anything I could have hoped for. He patiently worked around my pumping schedule. He built me a stand for my pump and pumping gear. He stayed up late to wash bottles for me, bagged milk, created our awesome milk tracking spreadsheet, and encouraged me every time I wanted to quit. Even to this day when something reopens this wound, he comforts me. He says he’ll never fully understand the heartbreak I experienced, but his support of me says otherwise. I could not have asked for a better companion through some of the darkest days. Thank you, Harrison. I love you.**
You did a wonderful job nourishing your son, and I hope the pain of the process lessens with each passing day!
So proud of you!!!! You are one super momma!!! You still did better than I ever did so don’t be too hard on yourself. Keeva is one healthy kiddo and that’s all that matters. He still got breastmilk from you and loved youuuuuuu so very much