And now, some words about my boobs.
June 29, 2004When I was pregnant, I was all about the attachment parenting. I thought Dr. Sears was neat-o. Yes! I will sleep with my child until he’s 23! No, I will never let him cry alone in a cold, dark room! I will wear him in a sling, also until he’s 23! (23 will be a hard year for him, but hopefully his career will provide a distraction.) I will Nurse Him Down and Night-time Parent and we will be so attached, our skin will fuse together and we’ll be conjoined and then we’ll need surgery. And I will nurse, oh how I will nurse! Yes, attachment parenting—yes I said yes I will yes.
The various tenets of Attachment Parenting were kicked to the curb by the time Henry was a few months old. The sling caused searing neck and back pain. Pain wasn’t mentioned in the Attachment Parenting rulebook. We stopped sleeping with Henry after I rolled over when he was asleep on my chest, causing him to slide off me and plummet to the floor. (Luckily, we were at my parents’ house, where they were wise enough to carpet their rooms in a deep, plush pile.) We began letting him cry it out (no angry emails, please! I’m sensitive!) because after a few months, he would not fall asleep if we were in the room. Would not. We tried and tried. We rocked and joggled him. He glared at us. We crooned lullabies. He found them hilarious—and stimulating. So we put him in his crib, or “prison,” as Dr. Sears put it somewhere or another, and he cried for a bit, then he fell asleep. Maybe he was more comfortable feeling like a convict.
But then, the nursing. How I wanted to nurse. I could laugh off most of Dr. Sears’ pronouncements, but not the chapters on nursing. When I was pregnant, I read book after book on the subject. Scott and I attended a breastfeeding class (where we watched a Nordic filmstrip featuring—I would never joke about such things—beautiful Scandinavians tweaking and massaging their nipples, all in the name of milk production). We practiced with foam boobs and rubber dolls. I had it down. I had a midwife who happened to be, and this is fact, Paulina Porizkova’s mother, and since she was hot, I figured my first post-birth nursing would be just like we saw in the movie—a gorgeous blond goddess helping me guide my engorged teat into the baby’s waiting lips, the milk flowing like the Hardanger Fjord.
As it turned out, after delivery my midwife was engaged in all kinds of postnatal unpleasantries. So when Henry was ready for his first snack, the nurse was the one who helped us out. And although I had done all the reading there was to do, although I had watched the soft-core breastfeeding film and practiced with the foamy boob, I laid there quietly while I watched this nurse twist my nip into some crazy point and shove Henry on in the wrong way, at the wrong angle; everything about it was all wrong. But I had just given birth and I was as helpless and weak as a newborn kitten, and Henry was getting something, so I said nothing. Then he was whisked away for warming and measuring, and I got an eyeful of my poor, poor nipple. And it was bleeding. Hey, nurse! Thanks! You suck!
Thus began four months of such pathetic, painful breastfeeding that even Dr. Sears would have reached out a fuzzy-parenting paw and handed me a bottle. First there was the bleeding, and the pain, dear God, the blinding pain. Then there was jaundice, which lasted and lasted, which caused Henry to sleep the days away and barely eat. So my milk supply dwindled, despite all the pumping. Then I was told he had a weak suck, and we did all kinds of insane mouth exercises. Then I was told he had a high palate. And he wasn’t gaining enough, so I had to supplement and pump more. Then, adding even more pain to the pain, I developed a YEAST INFECTION in my MILK DUCTS—which, unlike the yeast infections in the ol’ down below, causes searing, shooting hot daggers of pain, causing you to CRY OUT and CLUTCH YOUR BOOBS, often in public. And Henry had ideas about where to suck! And it was never anywhere near my nipple! I’d have to wrench his head in the right direction, and I learned that infants are strong little buggers. I would be sweating and cursing and crying and trying to just get him on the damn nipple, THAT’S WHERE THE FOOD IS, and he’d be all, “You’re not listening! It’s over there, by the armpit, I just know it!”
Throughout it all, my milk supply remained somewhere below a trickle. I pumped, I drank Mother’s Milk tea until I wanted to throw up, I took herbs that tasted a little worse than ass, I pumped more, and still, Henry would have a few halfhearted sucks, and then pull off to look up at me like, “Okay, this is cute, but seriously, where’s lunch?” Everyone thought I should stop nursing--everyone but Sexy Midwife, who was so hot that I figured her opinion meant more, right? I was convinced giving up would brand me a Failure as a Mother. Dr. Sear’s Baby Book told me that formula would make my son a bumbling half-wit (I may be exaggerating), and I cried and cried. I live in Park Slope, where the ratio of Women Nursing to Everyone Else is, at any given moment, 3:1. I would be shunned. Rocks would be thrown. Henry would grow up to learn how I had failed him, and he would struggle to forgive me. I had become a little nuts.
Then his four-month doctor’s appointment came, and I learned that he was only 11 pounds and hadn’t gained an ounce all month, and BAM, just like that, I gave it all up. I packed away the boobs, I set the pump on fire, I bought the formula. I wiped away my tears. And in the months that followed, I watched Henry change from a gaunt skritchy infant with visible cheekbones to a plump-cheeked, laughing baby who, miracle of miracles, no longer cried for hours every night. And I wasn’t even the least bit shunned. Although, while he was still using bottles, I made it a point to avoid Norway.
Reader Comments (50)
I still wonder how humans made it at all since we are pretty much a sitting ducks as prey for wild animals when breastfeeding.
I'm still at it and have discovered that the fact I occasionally pass out from breastfeeding can come in handy when I have insomnia.
And since we come from the hordes of overeducated poor of the greater eastern seabord (i.e., good at school, not at work) and so have a one bedroom apartment, attachment parenting is pretty much all we can do. I'd like to pat myself on the back for it but there isn't enough room in our bed for movement.
Yes, there is a breastfeeding conspiracy. Or just a motherhood conspiracy altogether that makes us bad mothers somehow no matter what we do.
He's still thinking about it now.
So predictable.
Iron-clad rules are stupid. People who define whether or not you're a good parent based on one aspect of your life--be it whether you work or how you feed or where your child is schooled--are stupid. And there are a lot of stupid people out there.
Breastfeeding can be an amazing thing. My second child breastfed until he was almost two-and-a-half, and would have continued indefinitely if I hadn't needed to take some medications I'd rather him not ingest. But does that make me a better mother than you? No freaking way. It's not about comparisons. It's about what's best for both of you. What you do is your business, not mine.
I'll make you all a deal. You all don't gawk at me disapprovingly the next time I (metaphorically, of course, since I'm no longer in the baby-making game) put a child to my breast in a public place, and I'll smile at you warmly when you take a bottle out of your diaper bag. Because, really, we're both just doing what we need to do, right?
That said, a hot Paulina nursing at her hot mama must have made for some hot girl-on-girl action.
i had a helluva time getting past that fact. let's just say i discovered the only joy of puberty to many, many posters and pictures of paulina.
and for the record, i am terribly thankful that nobody is ever gonna feed off my nipples.
But I do remember my husband staring in fascination as the super hot young nurse squeezed my nipples as she was teaching me to breastfeed. (Hundreds of strange and occasionally babelike women touched my tatas that week.) I wanted to ridicule him but I was too tired.
Dang. Three years? Really?
(our kids - adopted, and my wife didn't have the, ahem, pleasure of breastfeeding.)
Oh, and on the Paulina thing? Way cool. You're like two degrees from one of the hottest women on the planet.
I too went in the opposite direction--I turned into an attachment parenting fool, but not because I thought that was the way to go until my extreme laziness pointed up the convenience. No way was I going to walk all over the damn house to find my kids at mealtimes. And with round-the-clock medication for the middle child... yeah, right, he's staying right here, thanks.
As it turned out, I breastfed all three children into toddlerhood, but I believe that it was partly a function of having extremely cooperative anatomy. My breasts got with the program, and it only got easier with each baby. In fact, my last two were nursed almost exclusively on one side because the other was so stingy. I nursed even though I had numerous yeast infections and three or four rounds of mastitis, and no, I am not a crazy person. My second son nearly died of a heart infection, so I was all over nursing him for as long as he'd have it, but that was an easy decision because breastfeeding was easy for me. You absolutely made the right decision, and I would NEVER insinuate that formula is second rate. A happy, thriving baby is the goal here, not moral superiority.
Once I got past the first ten hellish weeks with the oldest, nursing became my favorite way to hang out with my babies. My family speculated that I must put out chocolate milk because my kids never wanted to wean, but now I think it must be crack. My daughter actually begs for it. "Mommy, don't say no, I neeeeeed mama!" She is now two and a half, and she has never had a bottle. Ever. And not because I'm some kind of La Leche fanatic, noooooo. It's because she is the most stubborn little freak on the planet, and she would wait ten hours for me to come home from work every day rather than let silicone pass her lips. Sure, I haven't slept through the night in six years, and my poor nipples are three times their original size, but... where was I going with this?
*wanders off to bed*
Also? I had mastitis SEVEN TIMES while nursing my second... and because it had gone so easily with nursing my first, I just charged along, figuring it was no biggie and we'd work it out. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick, why didn't anyone slap me upside the head with a can of formula and bring me to my senses?? There are all kinds of post-partum mothering stupidity out there. None of us should suffer so over what we think we "should" do. I'm with Jilbur, anything that isn't all about mothers supporting each other and getting whatever kind of support they need is just useless and ohsowrong.
After quite a few investigations, it turned out she was allergic to breasmilk...
They don't mention this is possible, do they?
What about ye olde wetnurse? Isn't that the role of formula? I know that there were women who wet nursed their children out, but I imagine there were also women who found breastfeeding as difficult as we do in the current era. As far as attachemnt goes, I'm way more in favor of the bottle than a wet nurse who lives in a filty hovel and keeps your kid for 3 years.
Sarah
I too, have a love/hate relationship with Dr. Sears; at first I thought he was so wise and where it was at -- but after having my kid all I could think was, "Yeah, right Sears!"
I've only been breast feeding for 3 weeks and I have to tell you, I hate it. My nipples feels as though they are going to fall off, I have a painful overactive milk let-down reflex which basically means whenever my hind milk comes in, it feels like pins and needles in my breast and my poor kid gags and chokes with so much milk.
It took me a while to realize that a lot of my difficulties stemmed from my milk let-down. It wasn't until I stumbled across an iVillage article that I realized what was going on.
No one really tells you these things, or truly warns you of the pain -- not LLL that's for sure. They are so damned one-sided, I felt that if I tried talking to them, their only advice would be to keep nursing NO MATTER WHAT.
Me:"Hi, my boobs are falling off and oozing blood..."
LLL:"Oh, that's normal. Just keep breast feeding!"
There is really a need for a non-judgemental agency/resource that can help mothers with breast feeding issues. Someone who will offer more advice than just sticking it out.
We all fear judgement so much that we have trouble asking for help. I lucked in. After telling the public health nurse/lactation consultant that "everything was fine" at the home visit (they send one around a few days after the birth here in Ontario), I called her back to admit that No, everything was NOT fine, and could she please come back?
She did. She was wonderful. I stuck it out and things got easier (although far from perfect).
There is a medication they can give you to help if you don't produce enough milk... and seriously, how do you measure this? They don't come with gauges! Only after three months of a fussy, miserable baby do you realize that it's "not enough milk".
The medication is called domperidone and while it's actally a stomach medicine, the side effect is an increased milk supply. It helped me make it through to the 6 month mark (well short of what I thought I should breast feed, and well past what I could have done without assistance).
Seriously though... there ought to be a gauge on either the baby or the boobs. This "by guess and by gosh" sh*t is for the birds.
So amidst all this rambling, I'm just saying I'm with ya!
aw man, i know this entry is 7 years old (literally...) but i am reading your whole blog from beginning to current and I HEAR YA - i was 100% breastfeeding gung-ho but a series of events (emergency c-section, baby in NICU, on meds for days, SLOW ASS MILK FLOW and minimal production) also thrust me into the world of formula feeding, where i was scorned for months and continue to feel extreme guilt about while being creepily envious and enthralled by all mothers wo exclusively breastfeed. i love that you wrote this. i love everyone who echoed your thoughts and opinions. and have you seen that recent commercial where the mother is talking about how beautiful nursing is, and all she has to do is "think about her baby and the milk just flows" and that's why she's a "great mom." dear great mom: fuck off.
Many men want to get rid of their man boobs, but this product that from Japan, can give you an instant boobs. It can be used by gays and men that want to have one without undergoing surgery. | http://losemoobs.com/how-to-get-rid-of-man-boobs.html
Ouch! That kinda hurts, girl! Bleeding nipples are scary. I cannot imagine myself in that situation. :| Good thing you're okay now. I hope you cope with the breastfeeding process.
-Katelyn Betterton