I am 19 weeks into motherhood and it's been crazy!!! Crazy good, crazy awesome, crazy-i-think-i-will-lose-my-mind-soon. Just crazy crazy. Just like my sweet little peanut, I too can cry and laugh all in the same breath. That's what raging hormones on a roller coaster mixed with a lack of sleep mixed with breastfeeding will do to you.
We will all have different experiences as mothers and this is just mine but seriously, who would have thought breastfeeding - one of the most natural things a woman can do - would be so damn complicated, thus the title of this blog post.
For the first three months of Eva's life I nursed her every hour. I would be sitting on the chair in my living room when my husband left for work in the morning and still be there when he got home. I barely made it to the bathroom or ate. Thank god my mom was here for a week feeding me and doing my laundry. And if my mother in law also didn't make food for us, I would have just gnawed on my arm.
And the pain was awesome too, well no, not really. I saw stars when Eva would latch, like in cartoons when a character gets hit over the head. I saw them and they sucked. My husband likely thought I was an uncontrollable lunatic during that time. I wonder if he thought he was ever going to get his normal wife back.
But alas, I finally called someone to help me. I waited so long because I thought it was supposed to hurt and you were not supposed to sleep or get a break and that was just how my baby was. WRONG!!
I called a lactation counselor/postpartum doula who saved me (and my nipples)! Little Miss Eva was tongue-tied which means her tongue movement was restricted due to an attached frenulum (that skin under your tongue). In other words, her latch wasn't great and she was working overtime to get milk because her suck was lacking.
When my LC, Kathy Koncelik, came to my house and found Eva's tongue-tie it was as if the darkness had been lifted and I was reborn. There was hope and breastfeeding didn't have to be do damn painful, which it is not supposed to be at that point!
Needless to say, we had the issue fixed with a quick snip of the frenulum by a lovely doctor in NYC and Eva was latching and nursing like a champ! It wasn't all rainbows and unicorns after that...there were still times when I continued to doubt my supply and that constant question of "was she getting enough??" still lurked in the background. But after Eva gained a pound in 10 days I knew things were working out. Also I have no more pain in the nips! Yahoooooo!!!
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| This isn't me but I love this pic! |
Here is what I would do differently. Call a lactation consultant/postpartum doula from DAY 1. After that baby pops out, have an LC at your house when you get home or when your milk comes in. IT IS SO WORTH IT!!!
I am stubborn and also I hate quitting or giving up on anything. So breastfeeding became a mindf&*K because I wanted to continue so badly but the pain and constant nursing was weighing on me. I remember at the time saying to my husband that breastfeeding was the hardest thing I had ever gone through in my life. I was really down in the dumps.
My sister in law who gave birth five weeks before I did had other issues with bfeeding. Her supply was too much and my niece was choking and spitting up and it was just a mess. Then when she went back to work and tried to pump she got barely anything. She changed from an electric pump to a hand pump and that has worked out for her but not before she lost her mind in the process.
Thankfully we both have our minds back (well partially anyway) and breastfeeding is moving forward. During some of our dark hours we would talk about calling it quits and going to formula but both of us are determined women so if we had to pump extra for each other for the next 6 months to make sure both of our babies were breastfed, we would do it. That's mommy drive for ya!
