My first adventure with breastfeeding

First of all I do want to say that I am an advocate of ‘Fed is Best’ but I will also so go as far as saying ‘what suits Mom’ is also important. Mom’s sanity, along with mental, physical and emotional wellbeing is über important, because if mom crumbles, well, it’s a sinking ship. And the second thing I will say is this: What👏 An👏 Adventure👏

I can’t even use the ‘journey’ because that sounds quite solid or steady or progressive in a linear fashion i.e. you start somewhere and end up at a destination.

But with breastfeeding, the finish line is always moving (and honestly there really is no finish line).

It’s an adventure, with highs and lows and they are mostly completely unexpected and inexplicable.

Like a lot of first time moms, I stupidly thought once the baby was born, BOOM! Feeding would be completely ‘natural’ and instantaneous to me. I read enough articles, books and accounts. I watched a lot of videos. I had read that it may not be so simple in the beginning – we women are warned “it might not work” – but that doesn’t really cover what exactly might not work and how much WORK it actually is, both internally and externally. Besides, I was way more focused on my pregnancy and also the labour and pushing the baby out, that I sort of just assumed “ah it will be grand, once I get going, even if it takes a few days”. Woah, did I underestimate it all!

Generally the journey for most women starts in the hospital and while I can’t complain much about the Austrian health care system, there are still gaps in the support that new Moms need.

Not even 5 minutes after the baby is born, the baby is encouraged to latch on and feed. To me this sounded like such a bonding moment when I was pregnant, and I couldn’t wait for this moment. Of course studies have proven for it to be exactly that: a bonding moment and no doubt it should be encouraged. But I found the reality wasn’t the rose-tinted, dream-like image I thought it would be. Mom is usually still reeling from the birth, that JUST happened, and in my case I was waiting to birth the placenta and deal with my nether regions.

Simply put, I needed a moment to just deep breathe about what had just happened and what I had physically been through. I held my daughter for 10 minutes and then passed her to her father and said “I need a moment”. He immediately took her lovingly and a breath later, I was cheerfully told “let’s try and see does she latch on! It will distract from “this” (pointing in the vague direction, south of my formerly pregnant bump). I felt a bit of panic rise in me, because this was not how I pictured the first breastfeeding session to go: legs in the air, nurses around, baby wriggly as hell, me covered in sweat, waiting for the placenta to be birthed and feeling weak. Where was the rose-tinted, ‘natural’, latching on, golden-glow moment I had been promised?! We somehow managed to do ‘something’ and then it we tried again once we were settled into our room.

The “Golden Liquid” aka as Colostrum is meant to be THE best thing for little baby, and so once I was settled in my room post-birth, the cycle starts. I was not really expecting it because I wasn’t sure what to actually do (despite watching all those YouTube videos), and so the nurse had to help. And by help I mean the midwife grabbing your boob, massaging it (at times I was told to do it myself, other times it was done for me) and then the midwife proceeds to squeeze out the colostrum. She then collects it, drop by drop in a little syringe (they need about 10ml to start with) and this is then given to baby. This continues until your milk comes in. Latching the baby and trying to breastfeed directly also continues but it is definitely a skill that took weeks to learn and there was lots of tears on both ends.

It is intense. How often? How long? Do I wake her up to feed? Is she getting enough? Is she getting anything?

I was given a nipple shield/guard at first. I was convinced that Baby Girl had a tongue tie or lip tie (she didn’t) or that my nipples were somehow “wrong”. I asked several times but as assured that everything on both sides was perfectly fine. Hindsight being what it is now, I realise that not only did I not have the technique, but Baby Girl needed to learn how to latch on, suckle and swallow and, well, my breasts were still quite new and not hardened to the process. No one mentioned that aspect though!

As the majority of babies are, Baby Girl was jaundiced and needed extra in order to attempt to ‘flush’ out the bilirubin. This only started showing after about two days and I, of course, was quite upset that my newborn baby was turning a Homer Simpson-style yellow. No one had told me that this was quite normal and the majority of babies are born with some degree of jaundice. 48 hours in and it was already a steep learning curve.

“A newborn’s immature liver often can’t remove bilirubin quickly enough, causing an excess of bilirubin. Jaundice due to these normal newborn conditions is called physiologic jaundice, and it typically appears on the second or third day of life.” – Mayo Clinic

And so I was introduced the the contraption called a pump. We were on day 3 and I was given a 5 minute explanation of how this contraption works. Considering I was attempting to nurse at the time, I only half heard the explanation. Again, in hindsight, I now know that you’ve to be very careful with pumping because pumping too much, for too long, can result in too much milk being produced and if not used by the baby, can lead to blocked ducts and mastitis, which is quite painful. But don’t pump and it may lead to baby not getting enough milk, blocked ducts and leakage.

Unfortunately, despite the pumping, feeding, syringe-giving (with colostrum and formula in the end), breast stimulation, latching on and so on, Baby Girl’s jaundice didn’t improve and so we needed to do 24 hours of ‘blue light therapy’, which again, in hindsight was fortunate that we could do it in the hospital and I was able to have her in my room as there were no other patients, but at the time the ‘baby blues’ had kicked in, my milk had also come in (in full on flow and leakage) and so there were non-stop tears. I was lucky in that at the time we were not in full on Covid-lockdown, but that said, the one hour a day that my husband was able to visit, was not enough, and so I was alone for the majority of that time, which was a lot and quite daunting.

At each turn there is something new to learn or experience. We breastfed and pumped (and fed breastmilk from a bottle until about 3.5 months, when she refused to take a bottle). We used a nipple shield until then and I guess once we stopped using that, she didn’t like anything else. And so started the journey of breastfeeding exclusively.

Now, eight months down the road and we’re still doing it, and last week, she refused her pacifier and has been using me as a human comfort blanket (read: my boobs). I think by far this has been one of the top 3 difficult things in the entire process. I enjoy breastfeeding most of the time, but this has left me feeling quite ‘touched out’. I feel I am locked in and have no time or space to do anything else other than be available for feeds, naptimes and now comfort 24/7. At least when I was pumping my husband was able to do a feed and give me a tiny sleep in or space.

I’ve pumped, used nipple shields, breastfed in random places, leaked, freaked out I had no milk, felt perfectly content, dream fed, stopped pumping, hand-expressed, cooed while feeding and cried.

There are times where it wanes a little but then also increases as well for various reasons: teething, sickness, comfort, night feedings, growth spurts and in our case around month 7/8 I became a human pacifier because she downright refused her ‘dummy’. Those moments it means putting everything on hold, regardless of what I’m doing or needs to be done, to sit down and feed. Around month 7 or 8, I was feeding around 4 times a day (plus at nap time) but last week it was up to 7 times plus naps. Don’t get me wrong, it is GREAT that she is eating and growing and that I physically can do this, but it is exhausting. The body is in full milk production mode, the hormones are all over the place (welcome back post partum hormone itch and hives!), nipples are taking a beating and I am just tired. Plus simply finding the time do anything else is just a mythical dream that’s out of my reach!

Baby fed and mom happy-ish, is all we can ask for, no matter how that looks. Formula isn’t easy either and neither is breastfeeding. Both have pros and cons. I’m looking forward to ending my breastfeeding journey and having my body back and handing over some duties, but I also already feel the heartache and guilt for choosing to stop (despite having reasons).

I know that I am ‘lucky’ to have had the process work for me, but it certainly has not been without its hurdles, perseverance and lows. Saying that does not mean I regret breastfeeding.

Definitely an adventure!