The reason it's awesome is because it discusses a really important subject. Breastfeeding advocacy is big these days, and I think that's great. I mean, our country has a dismally low breastfeeding rate (Did you know only 75% of women ever even TRY to nurse their babies?? The percentage who succeed... well, that's far lower.) We'll never improve this if it doesn't occur to women to breastfeed in the first place, and if the real facts aren't brought to the people from time to time. The latter is especially important in these times of aggressive formula marketing, and formula pushing, especially for those who birth in hospitals, which 99% of American women do. Breastfeeding advocacy is important. Moms need to hear that it's great to breastfeed; Breastmilk is more nutritious than formula; All the cool celebrities, their hot neighbor, and the skinny bitch at the gym all breastfeed their babies; whatever it's going to take to make it seem like a good idea to them is important to get out. Somewhere in there, though, a line has been crossed. Now, breastfeeding advocacy has gone from something great and empowering, to something almost threatening.
I am someone who always knew that the correct way to feed a baby is to nurse them. I have always had the knowledge that breastmilk is THE appropriate food for babies, that formula exists, but it's really a last resort, one not a lot of people truly need to even think about. When I was pregnant with Erin, it was never a question of IF I would breastfeed. I knew I would. I looked at people funny when they gave me bottles in baby shower gifts, because why on earth would people assume that I would need something like that? I was young, and healthy, and I could nurse the baby just fine. I wouldn't say I actually had some strong desire to breastfeed at that point in time. I just didn't really acknowledge that there were other viable ways to feed a baby. Babies nurse. That's that.
You know the saying, "I was a better parent before I had kids", meaning people think they know what the hell they're doing, until they actually have to do it? Well, I was way better at breastfeeding before I had kids. Nobody tells you how hard it is. Nobody tells you how bad it hurts. They tell you that if it hurts, you have a bad latch. In my experience, this is yet another way that society has taken to blaming the victim. Even with the best latch in the world, it was excruciating. Through cracks, and bleeding, and extreme pain that lasted every moment of every feeding, and then supply issues that prompted our well meaning pediatrician to tell me to nurse Erin every hour around the clock, I nursed Erin for one week. On the seventh day, I went to the lactation consultant. She gave me my first bottle of formula. For the first time, I fed Erin and it didn't hurt. I never nursed her again. I'm sure that wasn't the lactation consultant's aim in giving me the bottle to give to Erin, but it was relief, and I didn't know why I didn't think of it sooner. It had just never occurred to me that I could use formula. That's what trashy women from the trailer park did. I always saw bottle feeding as just strange and gross. Bottles with formula always looked like they would smell bad, and taste even worse, so I really never thought I would end up actually liking to feed my daughter that way, but that's exactly what happened.
Occasionally, I would have someone say something to me about how I should have kept breastfeeding her, and how she was going to suffer for the fact that I didn't nurse her for long, but it didn't really make me feel bad. I was doing the best I could, and I was far better able to care for Erin if I didn't resent her so badly for the pain it caused me to nurse her.
Five years later, there was Orren. Again, it was always the plan to breastfeed. I had fed formula before, but even then, I found it kind of gross, and really didn't want to do that again. I wasn't exactly excited about the prospect of breastfeeding. I knew by then that it hurt like hell, and that it wasn't easy, or this thing that comes as naturally as breathing or walking, the way a lot of people lead others to believe. I knew it would be hard, but I thought maybe since I knew more about it this time, and also since I wasn't single anymore, and would have Thak to help me, I would be able to get through the hard first weeks, and make a success of it.
When Orren was born, he nursed like a champ. He had a way better latch than Erin, and was just a stronger baby (not that Erin was weak. Orren was just strong as an ox right from the start.) but a 9 pound 9 ounce newborn has to nurse A LOT, and before 24 hours were out, despite the best latch ever, the same old pain and cracking began again. Every time I nursed Orren, it hurt from start to finish. My reflex was to throw him off me every time he latched on, just because it hurt so bad. I never did that, of course, but that's what my reflex reaction was.
One night, I was so tired, and Thak told me to just pump some milk for a bottle, and he would stay up with Orren while I got some sleep. I got out my pump (I only had a hand pump at that time) and tried to get some milk out. All I got was blood. Seeing that, Thak said no more breastfeeding, and ran to the store for formula. What I thought would be my biggest asset turned out to be my downfall that time. I don't fault him for it. He had a very hard time seeing me in that much pain, and being able to do nothing about it short of buying formula, and forbidding me from nursing our little son anymore.
I will never forget the last time I nursed Orren. It was a Friday, and the sun was shining through my window. I lay on my left side on our bed, and Orren latched on with less pain than I had felt in a long time. I knew it was wrong to quit nursing him, and I think Thak did, too, but we switched to formula that day. He was barely over a week old.
As much as it may seem contrary, I did not take this decision lightly. I remember making Thak read me every ingredient on every can of formula in Hinesville Wal Mart, and trying to figure out what the least of the evils was. Orren drank nothing but organic and GMO-free formula because I felt slightly less horrible about giving it to him than the other stuff. The feeling of mixing that first bottle was like falling down a rabbit hole. It's like, you know it's wrong, and all the news articles about how inferior formula is in every single way, and every documentary that was ever made on that same subject, just race through your mind as you measure out water and scoop the mix into it. You know it's wrong. It's been drilled into your head how shitty formula is for babies, and you know that you shouldn't be using it, but at the same time, breastfeeding is looking more and more impossible with every feeding. You're exhausted, in pain, and just want some rest. You mix up the bottle. A month later, our pediatrician yelled at me for not breastfeeding (thus reaffirming that formula is BAD, and I know BETTER), so I bought an expensive pump, a bunch of supplements, and spent hours of every day for the next month and a half, attempting to reestablish lactation. I never got more than a couple ounces a day, and Orren was never willing to latch back on again. After our move to El Paso, we just used formula.
When I had Chaiyo, two years after Orren was born, again, I knew I HAD to make breastfeeding work that time. Had to. No choice. This time, we couldn't even afford formula even if I wanted it, which I certainly didn't. I was still pretty grossed out by the stuff, even having fed two babies on it, and this one was going to be the one that was different. I would not have Thak to support me as much as I did with Orren, because he had to go back to work just a couple days after Chai was born, but I would have to make it work somehow.
Chai's birth was by far my most difficult. Some women who give birth to a 10 pound baby at home will tell of how easy it was, but I am not those people. I had an easy birth once (Orren's), but Chai's was very difficult. He was 10 pounds 2 ounces, and was born his hand up by his face, and his shoulders got stuck. After he was out, I had excessive bleeding that required medication to control. It was a difficult birth. I remembered from when Orren was a baby, just how much he ate when he was born, how he was ravenous. Well, I quickly found out that the only thing in my life that nurses more than a 9 pound baby, is a 10 pound baby. It didn't take long for the pain and the cracking to come back. This time, I had a big tube of lanolin to help prevent that stuff, but it didn't really work all that well. I still had extreme pain, just as bad as the other two times. Only difference is that this time, I didn't even have the option to switch to formula, and every time I fed him, just like with the other two, I thought to myself, "Holy shit. I have to do this for a year. How am I going to make it?" When he was a week old, I felt something I remembered from when Erin was that age. Postpartum depression was setting in, only this time, the one thing I knew that would keep it away was not an option. I could not stop breastfeeding. We couldn't afford it.
We decided that we had to supplement just a little, so I could get some sleep, so again, Thak read me the ingredients of every formula label in the store. I told him to get organic, but he couldn't find it, so he got a very common type of formula, and we gave Chai a bottle (which caused him to spit up for the first time in his life. Talk about feeling like shit.) I had to keep my milk supply up, but latching him on was SO painful, so I got out my pump, and I pumped every hour for 15 minutes. I fed the pumped milk to Chai, and gave formula when that wasn't enough to fill him up. After a week of that, I latched him back on, and we've been nursing ever since.
There was still the matter of the supplemental formula, though. We had to get off the supplement, because it was hurting my supply, and we needed to do it before three months, because that's when supply regulates. As of a couple weeks ago, Chaiyo is exclusively breastfed. I'm probably the only one who notices how good my kitchen looks with no formula cans anywhere to be found. I'm probably the only one who cares about that, but I do care, because I've worked so hard to get to this point.
The idea is, I suppose, that some people legitimately have a hard time with breastfeeding. I have always known it as what was normal. It wasn't something that I had to get used to the idea of, quite the opposite, really. I had the best circumstances. No care giver of mine has ever offered me formula. I have never been separated from any of my babies during their first days and weeks of life. Nobody ever told me breastfeeding was nasty or bad. I've never even received formula samples in the mail like I'm always hearing about people getting. The ideal situation for a successful breastfeeding experience almost exactly mirrors my reality, yet I still had these major difficulties that caused me to quit breastfeeding really early with my first two, and supplement with formula for a couple months with my third.
I agonized endlessly over the decision to give formula. I never wanted to use the stuff because I know how crappy it is. I have received the facts. I have the knowledge. I even had the best chances to succeed, but I STILL ended up using the stuff. I would say the only thing that the extreme form that breastfeeding advocacy has mostly taken these days got me is the stress of feeling absolutely horrible about the manner in which I ended up feeding Erin and Orren. It got me to think it is embarrassing to use formula. I don't know where the balance is, really. Breast IS best. It really is. That's why I so adamantly stuck with it this time, even after knowing nothing but pain and failure with it in the past. But I have to wonder if a line has not been crossed, when moms who have genuinely done their best are feeling terrible for the way they feed their babies. Maybe breastfeeding advocacy has gone too far. Maybe those of us who do believe in this thing (and that includes me) need to figure out how to walk that line a little better. Encourage and support, give facts, and correct misconceptions, but the shaming, I think, we can certainly do without.
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