Assume the Perpendicular

This is a lengthy post about my struggles with breastfeeding. Some of it I have already talked about in individual posts, but I wanted to write out my full experience in one place with the hope that it might provide encouragement to other breastfeeding mothers who are having difficulties.

Breastfeeding has always been important to me. Really important. I knew going in that it wouldn’t be easy, but I honestly had no idea how hard it would be. I saw a chart when I was pregnant that illustrated how breastfeeding would be difficult during the first few weeks, but would gradually get easier and easier. I remember the curve falling off somewhere around four weeks. Four weeks came and went for us, and we were still struggling. Six weeks came and went. Two months came and went. It’s been a long and frustrating journey, but after four months I can finally say that we have it down. It seemed like we went from problem to problem. As soon as one issue was resolved, another developed. There were definitely times when I felt like giving up, like it would just be so much easier admit defeat and switch to the bottle, but I am so glad I kept at it. 

Let’s start at the beginning. I was nervous during my pregnancy because I knew I had slightly inverted nipples which could cause problems with latching. I took a breastfeeding class and discussed my issues with the teacher, a lactation consultant. She was very optimistic that I wouldn’t have any issues, but I was still wary.

Soon after Eleanor was born, we tried nursing for the first time. I was trying not to get my hopes up about a good latch, so I was overjoyed when she opened her tiny mouth wide and latched right on. She sucked for a few seconds before she fell off. That’s how it went for her first few days. She could latch, but she couldn’t stay latched long enough to get any colostrum. I was really concerned during the hospital stay and I asked for a visit from one of their in house lactation consultants. I was put on a waiting list and in the mean time my nurses tried to help. They would watch Eleanor latch, see that we both had good form, and just shrug it off. They told me that she would figure out the sucking park soon enough. When the lactation consultant came she likewise didn’t see any problems. I remember her smiling and telling me that we were doing “just fine,” and to keep at it. Even though everyone thought there were no problems, Eleanor hadn’t stayed latched long enough to get a significant amount of colostrum, so they had me pump and feed her with a syringe. I left the hospital optimistic, thinking that perhaps breastfeeding would go smoothly after all.

When we got home in the afternoon of Eleanor’s second day, I sat down in our armchair to nurse her. She would suck for a few seconds, then fall off, then latch back on and suck, then fall off again. My optimism disappeared pretty quickly. My milk came in that day, but I still wasn’t able to get her to really eat, and she was starting to get frustrated. She would start to cry as soon as I put her in the feeding position. By the evening I was getting concerned. Her urine was orange in color and her mouth was dry, which I knew were signs that she wasn’t getting enough fluids. That night was horrible. She woke up around midnight and I tried to get her to nurse, and she just couldn’t stay latched. She would cry hysterically, it would take several minutes to calm her down, then I would try to get her to nurse again, always without success. I knew she was so close to nursing well, so I just kept trying. This went on for three straight hours with her screaming the entire time. Finally Andrew suggested I give her what I had pumped at the hospital in a bottle.

My heart sunk. I knew he was right. She desperately needed to eat, and she wasn’t going to take my breast, but I was so scared to give her a bottle because I knew it could aggravate any latch issues she might have. I knew that sucking from a bottle required less work, and that if she got used to the bottle she might never want to nurse. Having my baby refuse my breast was one of my biggest fears. That sounds like an exaggeration, but that’s really how important breastfeeding was (and is) to me.

Despite my apprehension, I knew I had to get milk to my baby, so I gave her the colostrum in a bottle and the next morning broke out my breast pump.  I told myself it would only be a temporary fix, but I spent that entire day in tears. I called the lactation consultant from the breastfeeding class and set up an appointment for the following morning.

If you are a new mother struggling with nursing, I can’t stress how important it is to get professional support as early as possible. If you are having latch issues, if you are worried about your milk not coming in, if you are dealing with oversupply or undersupply, call a lactation consultant right away. The early days of breastfeeding are the most important in terms of establishing supply. If you wait a few weeks it could be too late. Breastfeeding seems like it should be simple and intuitive, but it can be so difficult, and lactation consultants have tips and tricks to make it easier. They are also great sources of comforting advice. After her initial visit I called my lactation consultant several times to talk about breastfeeding, and she always made me feel so much better about whatever was going on. I don’t know if I would still be breastfeeding today if it wasn’t for her help, guidance, and emotional support. If you are having trouble nursing your baby, having the support of a knowledgeable lactation consultant is invaluable. 

When she arrived I was a wreck. I had been crying almost nonstop for two whole days. I was hoping she would have some sort of miracle fix for us. I kept telling myself that by that evening I would be nursing Eleanor smoothly. She was much more attentive than the hospital lactation consultant, but also couldn’t find anything obviously wrong. Her theory was that Eleanor had a particularly high palate and that put her “comfort zone” further back in her mouth, so while she had no problem latching on, she had difficulty drawing my nipple back far enough to stimulate more sucking. After working with us really extensively for two hours and making no progress, she finally went down to her car and came back with a nipple shield. It worked.

She suggested I keep working with Eleanor to try to get her to latch without it, because she told me I would hate it and would be cursing her name in the middle of the night while I fumbled with it in the dark. She was so right. For the next few days I would pump a bit before a feeding to get the milk flowing, then try to get Eleanor to latch and suck. It never worked, but the shield always did the trick. I hated it so much, but it was better than pumping and bottles. She had promised me that we wouldn’t have to use the shield forever, and I kept reminding myself of that whenever it would frustrate me.

The shield was difficult to put on. It required two hands, which meant I had to lay Eleanor down on my lap, and putting her down would make her cry harder than she was already crying. It was so hard in the first few weeks to get her to eat. Once she got started she would be fine, but it was as if being at my breast automatically upset her, so I had to work on calming her down, only to have her start screaming again when I turned her toward my breast, or to have to start screaming again when she would latch but then break away, taking the shield with her. I know it’s irrational, but it made me feel like she hated me.

For several weeks, nursing was a battle. Sometimes she wouldn’t latch without me walking or bouncing on an exercise ball, and all the while the shield kept falling off and spilling milk everywhere and requiring me to put down a screaming baby in order to put it back on.  It also caused Eleanor to nurse less efficiently, and I was dealing with a bit of an oversupply, so I ended up getting lots of plugged ducts. Luckily they never turned to mastitis, but they were really painful and really annoying. In addition to putting on the shield and bouncing, I also had to spend a lot of nursing sessions rubbing my breast to work out the plugs.  

Eleanor got to where she would latch quickly, but then she would start to cry after nursing for a few minutes, and there would be more battling. More walking. More bouncing. More tears from the both of us. Eventually I figured out that she liked to take a little break during nursing sessions, and if I gave her a few minutes after she started to fuss she would settle down and nurse again.

For her first two months, nursing was a constant source of anxiety for me. I had to always make sure I had a shield near by. I had them positioned all over the house and I checked for it obsessively in the diaper bag when we were out. I was so scared that I would end up without it and would have to deal with a hungry baby who I couldn’t comfort. Eventually I just took to storing one in my cleavage. If I wasn’t worrying about the shield, I was worrying about how much she would cry and how long it would take me to get her to calm down and latch when she was hungry. When I was around other people I would escape to another room where I could jiggle and bounce and plead with her, telling them that Eleanor was a “fussy eater.”

All the while I kept working on weaning her off of the shield. I hoped that we would only need it for a few weeks, but sometimes if felt as if we would have to use it forever. She wasn’t interested in latching without it at all. Most of the time it upset her. I tried not to push the issue, but I just wanted nursing to be easy. I dreamed of simply whipping my boob out and having her latch and suck right away without tears, without struggle, without messing with an infuriating piece of silicone. Every once and a while there would be a fluke incident where she would nurse for a few seconds without the shield, and I would get so excited, but there never seemed to be any lasting change.

Then one morning when Eleanor was 11 weeks old, I tried to latch her without the shield, and it worked. She just latched, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t fuss. She didn’t cry. She didn’t squirm. She just…latched. We never needed to use the shield again.

I wish that is where this story ended, but of course my nipples weren’t used to the full force of her sucking, so I had to deal with sore nipples for a few weeks, and then when I finally was healed, she started developing a serious side preference. As I mentioned before, I’ve had an oversupply which made my letdowns really forceful. Eleanor could deal with it when she used the shield because it created a buffer between her and the stream of milk, but without the shield she was often left gagging and choking. The letdown was the most forceful on my right side, so she started preferring the left. If I tried to put her on the right side, she would scream and scream, just like when she was a newborn. More struggles. More battles.

I didn’t want to fight with her anymore, but my right side would get so engorged, sometimes I simply had to get her to nurse from it. I figured out that she would nurse from the right during the night, so the left became the day time boob and the right the night time one. After a few weeks the sides seem to have evened out and her preference has declined, although I had to trick her with the football hold a few times to get her to give it a try.

So here we are, one day shy of four months old, and I am FINALLY able to say that breastfeeding is easy. And you know what, despite all of the tears and the frustration, it was worth fighting for. I know I would have been so disappointed with myself if I would have given up. I wanted the special bonding time and the physical closeness that breastfeeding provides so much. I wanted to know that I sustained my baby with just my body. I wanted to help her immune system and make her as healthy as possible. I’m really proud to say that Eleanor has been exclusively breastfed despite our rocky beginning.

Not everyone feels as passionately about breastfeeding as I do, and that is okay. It’s not a big deal for some mothers, but it is a huge deal to me, and if anyone reading this is currently struggling with breastfeeding and considering throwing in the towel, let me just encourage you to take a minute and consider how important breastfeeding is to you. If not breastfeeding your baby would break your heart, then keep trying. Don’t give up! I’m confident that any breastfeeding problem can be solved with a little time, some professional help and counsel, and a lot of patience. I know how hard it is, I know how sometimes it just feels impossible, but it will pass. It will get easier, even if it takes several months, and if you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m always here. 

If you are pregnant and wanting to breastfeed, I would encourage you to think positively about breastfeeding, but be prepared for the possibility of problems. Get a breast pump, some bottles, and the number of a lactation consultant near you.