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I have assisted several new moms recently with some common breastfeeding difficulties. Something that I have heard numerous times of late is, “But it was so EASY for you and The Son.” Since apparently several of these new moms have been lurking here, I thought you might need a little story. NURSING HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN EASY FOR ME US! End of story. Just kidding, I will give you the slightly longer version.

My mom did not BF my brother or me. I have no friends who have breast fed very long at all (well, before I had The Son, I have lots now!). I do not have a sister, or cousin, or aunt to ask questions or reassure me. I knew when I was pregnant I wanted to BF The Son. I assumed it would be very hard because I had not seen anyone be successful. This scared me, so I sought out a BFing class at our local hospital. It was taught by a very old nurse who gave us stacks of pros on BFing, told us that the lactation consultant was there to help us after we gave birth. She showed us a mildly pornographic video produced in the seventies, and sent us on our way with the final thought, only 15% of us would make it to that CDC and AAP recommended minimum of a year. Yeah. Um, thanks.

I stocked up on nursing pads and lanolin, and refused to let any formula in the house before he was born, despite the cans already being sent by the chemical companies. I was stubborn; I refused to acknowledge the fact maybe I would not be able to BF. As my due date loomed near, and the ultrasounds showed The Son’s ginormous head growing bigger and bigger, I accepted the fact I would probably be having a c-section, and my resoluteness on BFing did waver slightly. On the day of my induction I told the nurses not to give him any pacifiers or formula under any circumstances.

He was born at 3:14 pm (Pi!)

and I was not able to hold him until about 6:30, I was still drugged, and the epidural was firmly in place. I sent all of my family, except for The Husband, away and asked for the lactation consultant to help with my first time BFing. “She is sick.” Um, whaaa? Sick LC was not written in my birth plan, not even the revised C-sec one. The nurse on duty showed me how to latch this sleeping little bundle on and left. L-E-F-T.

He actually did pretty well that first day, but by the next day all of the drugs had worn off and my poor nipples were a blistered, bleeding mess. The Son cried constantly, and my milk had yet to arrive. I was miserable, I was so conflicted, and confused and was thinking that we may be looking at formula after all. My stubbornness won out. I let my tiny baby starve, rejected any pacis, or bottles, and listened to him scream. Milk was still nowhere to be seen. His birth weight was falling rapidly. They released us four days later. No milk. Five days later. No milk! His lips were getting parched and I just knew that this supposed colostrum was not doing squat. He would suck and suck, and my nipples bled and bled, and we both cried and cried. Without a doubt the hardest, least fun or magical days of my life. The second day we were home I told the husband that if my milk was not in by that evening we were going to high tail it to Wal-Mart and buy some Similac. I took a nap and felt like such a failure, wondered if I would suck at all of motherhood as much as I did this. I fell asleep in tears, and could hear The Son crying in his Daddy’s arms.

When I woke up my milk had come in! Whether it had arrived on the last train from Clarksville, or the Mammary Fairy had visited in my sleep, I had huge, engorged, useful breasts. And The Son would not latch on! At all! All he wanted to do was sleep. And he weighed almost a full pound less than when he was born. I sent The Husband out to Wal-mart, at eleven, for one of those manual pumps to ease the unbearable pain. It was worse than my still throbbing c-section incision. I could not even figure out how to work the damn thing. I cried as I held my breast with both hands and The Husband held The Son and tried to coax his little mouth onto my nipple. We did this every two hours for a week before we all got the hang of nursing. His weight slowly but surely crept up. I had to wake us all up to nurse every two hours. A nursing session would last 45 minutes from start to finish, and then we would try to sleep for an hour and fifteen minutes. It sucked. There may be moms out there that tell you that those first few weeks are magical and wonderful and nursing only added to that. I was depressed, in pain, and weeping from exhaustion.

When The Son was about four weeks old my mom spent the night and I pumped enough with my new electric double barreled blessing from above to sleep for more than an hour at a time. I got two sections of four hours in a row. The Husband slept for nine hours straight. We all three woke up renewed. My nipples healed. The nursing continued, and got so much better, it did become magical and wondrous, a gift I felt I had earned.

There have been a few more bumps along the road, but overall, after that first month it was all easy coasting. So as I said, it was not easy for me, and it very well may not be easy for you, but it is worth it. Some people say that no one likes me on my soapbox, but you know what? This is my soapbox because I think if more people told the truth about the first days of motherhood we would have better breast feeding success rates, less postpartum depression, and happier, healthier babies. So, yes I do have a soapbox, but I paid my dues for it, just like all moms, BFing or FFing do. And I really believe all the best things in this life are the ones that you work for the hardest.

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