I had planned my whole pregnancy to breastfeed. Because you know, breast is best. Rah rah! My sister had breastfed my three amazing nieces and she seemed to like it. There is a veritable ton of literature and information on why breast is best, and I wanted to do the best I could for my baby. And, of course, it is virtually free. Yay free! On a tight budget that makes a difference formula costs a fortune. So, yes, I had planned on breastfeeding, but I can't say I was looking forward to it pre-baby. I knew women who were vehemently pro and vehemently con. I had heard good stories and bad. The cracked nipples, the sleepless nights, the failure to latch. So while I wasn't dreading it (I was too busy deeply dreading labour), I wasn't exactly awash with anticipation either.
Along came Wren.
Now if you're still reading you either already have some sort of vested interest in breastfeeding or perhaps a wealth of knowledge. Breasts leading up to labour are not happy campers. Husbands are. They get bigger, they get harder, and weird things happen to your nipples. In my case also bigger, harder and darker. Happy husband. Enough of that though (sorry Mom and maybe Dad and anyone else who didn't need/want to hear that). Along came Wren. Three weeks early and our beautiful Little Bird. 17 hours of labour and an unplanned c-section later there is one tired little newborn for Mommy to feed. We are in recovery for ages. She is too tired to latch. We try and she is lethargic and the nurses suggest we might want to try formula. They ask like they're trying to not trip a bomb. Our hospital is amazing and very pro breastfeeding and they knew I was planning on it, but babies needs have to come first. Period. I'm worried about this new little one that worked so hard to join us on the outside that I have zero problem with it. I know some women would have hesitated or fought the suggestion and that's why they asked so tentatively, but every time I was asked to make a decision like that my answer was and will always be, "what is best for Wren?". So formula it was. To start. I was a little disheartened, but 100% comfortable with my choices. The formula helps immensely, she wakes up a little more, finally cries like she means it. Yes, we had to make our newborn baby cry. She was very quiet up till then and needed to clear her lungs and airways better. It was one of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard in my life.
Eventually we make it to the room where our families have been waiting for hours after the surgery to see us. We visit. Nurses come, it is time to try again. Now I had heard multiple times by this point what perfect, large breast feeding nipples I had. Doctors, nurses any medical professional who chanced to see my breasts to this point had pointed the fact out to me. Frankly, at that point, I found it (and them) rather embarrassing. Wren weighed 6lbs.4.8oz at birth. It's fair to say each breast was bigger than her head. How the hell was I going to do this? The nurses were convinced it was possible and the coaching began. How to hold her, how to hold my breast to guide the nipple into her mouth, where to position, where not to position. Wren managed to latch, but three weeks early there wasn't much there and she wasn't very strong. Colostrum is the first to come, before milk and that required a lot of coaxing. Again we were somewhat hesitantly advised to supplement with formula. And again we decided to go ahead. Yes, we understood breast was best, but yes we also understood that Wren needed to eat. Formula went well. Breastfeeding was difficult. There is almost no worse feeling in the world than trying to feed your baby, wanting to feed your baby with your body and coming up short. I was advised by all and sundry to persevere and being bloody stubborn I didn't want to give in. Our routine for the first couple days was, hand express individual drops of colustrom (10 drops per breast) onto a finger and feed them to her. After the 20 drops we would feed formula, then Wren would sleep and I would hitch up to the old breast pump and milk myself for about 15 minutes a side to encourage the milk to come in. Every little bit of colostrum and eventually milk was stored and then given to Wren after the finger drops, before the formula. She was on a three hour schedule. I always thought this meant that three hours after she finished eating, she would then eat again. Nope. Three hours from the beginning of every feeding another feeding started. For the first 48 hours or so for me this meant that by the time we did the whole routine I'd have about 15-20 minutes before it all started again. The nurses were patient and amazing. I was hormonal and periodically hysterical, but we kept going. The milk started to come and the routine got shorter, but we were still supplementing. Breastfeeding at that point was still a chore, it was hard, but I was damned if I would give up. And there were times I dearly wanted to. There is a point in my handwritten log where I start to write down a dream I'm having because I fall asleep in the middle of recording how many drops of milk, how much breast milk and how much formula Wren had. If you look at the log it's like one persons personal descent into a fugue state. I didn't love breastfeeding, but man did I love Wren. We were in the hospital 4 days. Every single nurse or doctor who came in to help would comment on my nipples. Every single one. My husband will still tell this to all and sundry and then get the death stare from me for doing so. I guess I'll have to stop that. It was a struggle, but by the time we left she had successfully latched enough that we were going to keep going, but I we went home still supplementing. I won't lie, I was still scared to leave, how was I going to do this on my own? The answer of course was that i wasn't because I have an amazing husband and support network to help me through it. It was hard at home too. We followed the routine, I remember finally getting like 2 hours of sleep in a row and being so happy and refreshed by it. There were tears and troubles and so much trying and then time it just went easy on it's own. I remembered I messaged a friend and said " Latched! I feel like a motherfucking hero." (Yes, I swear a lot. Like, A LOT. I'm working on it). And that was that.
No, not really. But we got there, more and more we got the latches and there was less and less formula until there was none. I still pumped, although soon there was more milk than Wren could ever drink (we had a 20 bag stockpile in the freezer) and i leaked constantly and my breasts were still hard and sore. But feeding her I was and that was pretty cool.
I had always heard the big fear with supplementing or bottle feeding early is that it can cause "nipple confusion". Luckily for us, Wren is awesome and loves any nipple that feeds her stuff. And has been able to go between real and simulated from the beginning. The secret side benefit of supplementing with formula right away and having breast milk in the bottle is that Daddy got to help feed her too. And Nanny and Poppy and Julie and, well, you get it. It takes a village. And that village helped me immensely because sometimes I could skip a direct feeding and have a nap. A much needed nap.
As Wren got back up to her birth weight and grew three hour feedings turned into four and longer until she was big enough and things were going well enough that we could let her go longer and I could let up on the pumping and i got to sleep more and we found our groove. It was a lot of late night TV (well, Netflix) and snacks, more water than I had consumed in the preceding two years. I have never been so thirsty in my life as i was that first month or two. I also would never have believed how comfortable I would become breastfeeding. At first I would cover up whenever anyone was around outside of my husband and female friends and family, but slowly that changed. More and more I was around people who were comfortable with it or became more so. More and more I viewed it as natural and easy. As the weather grew warmer it was simply too hot and Wren really doesn't like being covered up now. My dad walked in on us one day and the world didn't end. I discovered my father-in-law didn't care a whit to begin with. It was also just comfortable and natural. Not everyone in my family feels that way and I respect that and will still cover up in certain places and for certain people. Courtesy extends both ways. I have breast fed in places I never thought I would have, mostly in the car, but in the blood clinic one day, a food court. In highly public places even if I'm not covering up I do try to be discreet. And our Little Bird has been on solids now for almost a month. She tried peanut butter for the first time today! Yum. She took to eating like a champ.
So why the crazy long story then? Because it worked out? Not really. I mean yes, it worked out, I'm glad it did. But a friend recently had a baby and she wasn't planning on breastfeeding and it got me to thinking about it one day because, aside from the work of it, I don't know how much I actually thought about it until then. Not beyond the mechanics of it, and that I enjoyed our time together. And I teared up. I teared up because of all the things the story I just told doesn't say. It doesn't say that ultimately breastfeeding has been and continues to be one of the single most rewarding endeavors of my entire life. I'm tearing up now and I don't even know if I have the words for how glad I am I stuck with it and the love I have for it. How much I love that time between Wren and I. Not every single second of it in the moment. Not the odd bite or hard pull or scratch, but the whole of it. The good, the difficult, the funny, the entire messy world of it that exists just between her and I.
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