I am aware this title is likely to get me a handful of hits from people looking for buxom beauties on the internet. Is that still a thing? Allrighty then … hello there, fellas. Or ladies. Whatever, I’m not here to judge. Well, yes I kind of am here to judge. What are you doing look for bosoms in the middle of a Thursday morning/afternoon? Get back to work! I mean, of course, get back to work as soon as you’re done reading this, and then subscribing, and then following me on Twitter. But don’t try to friend me on Facebook, creepo. I’m sorry to tell you the only image you’ll find here is of my dad, over there, on the right, feeding my baby a bottle of formula.
I do have a valid reason for referencing breasts in my title. It’s been a long time coming, this post about my experience with that ultimate social standard that signifies you are not a reptile mommy and you aim to have a healthy, happy child: breastfeeding. I write this because I believe in breastfeeding, very much. But I also believe in everybody minding their own business, very much.
As the lovely and amazing writer, mommy and internet/radio personality Teresa Strasser puts it — and I paraphrase — the militant breastfeeding community has us new mommies believing that breast milk will make our babies levitate. Likewise, they would have us believe that baby formula is poison.
I have bought into this same creed my entire reproductive life. I imagined I would first behave as the Ideal Pregnant Woman, i.e., eating only organic fruits and vegetables, hormone-free meat from animals who were tickled to death, and drinking herbal tea and water and never touch soda or coffee again. I also KNEW I would, post-water-birth delivery, carry on as a glowing Mother Earth Goddess with a halo over her sanctimonious head, rose petals under her bare feet and a rosy-cheeked cherub at her breast for the next two years, minimum. As you know, my darling readers, that otherworldly ideal did not so much flourish as much as it withered away at the first sight of chocolate milk, processed cheese food product and Hebrew Nationals. About the only rule I managed to follow completely was spelled out in block letters on my doctor’s Bad Food List: “DO NOT EAT ANY FISH CAUGHT IN INDIANA WATERS.” All caps scare the poo out of me, so that was effective.
As I did as best my hormones would allow while the little peanut was inside my guts, so too I tried my hardest to breastfeed once he arrived. I had attended the free breastfeeding class at my hospital, so I thought I had it covered. I knew exactly what to do. And I did. In my post-delivery haze, I remembered everything I was taught. Turns out, the Little Dude most certainly did NOT know what to do. Nor did he want to do the work. He had a shallow latch, and once he did latch, he would never wait for the milk to let down before he started FA-REAKING OUT.
For the next 48 hours, I saw three different lactation consultants, and had two excellent nurses. Ergo, five completely different sets of advice about breastfeeding.
“Here, try this nipple shield to draw you out.”
“She gave you a nipple shield? Oh, I hate those things.”
“Who told you you had flat nipples? You don’t.”
“You took Nubain for the labor pains? No wonder he’s so sleepy. This is how modern medicine gets in the way of mother nature …”
“She told you that? Don’t you let her make you feel guilty about your choices.”
“He’s not sleepy, he’s just lazy.”
Once I gave permission for the lactation consultant to touch me, the idea of breastfeeding no longer felt like a thing to bond me to my baby. Those ladies were on me like a farmer on a slightly irritated and very sore cow. Every three hours, there I was: my pretty new pajama top unbuttoned, with my exposed teets getting mashed and squeezed by a strange lady with forearms like an Austrian weightlifter, while my sweet little bundle refused, alternately, to let down his tongue, grab much of anything in his mouth, do any work required to bring the milk down, or stay awake.
That’s not to say the consultants weren’t good at their jobs, as they did manage to help us finally achieve adequate latch. They encouraged me, beyond all reason, that together I and the little guy would figure it out. And I still believed in nursing my baby, even after having been poked and prodded and manhandled to the point of wanting to scream. I told myself as I left the hospital that once Little Dude and the Husband and I were home and relaxed, then we’d have less of a struggle. After all, I wouldn’t have visitors and nurses and hospital bill collectors knocking on my door every two hours.
Boy, howdy. That first night at home, that baby was awake and hungry. However, I was exhausted. Exhausted because I followed the advice of all the idiotic advice in every damn pregnancy book and on every damn pregnancy advice website: I had roomed with the baby at the hospital. No nursery for him, I don’t want to let him out of my sight. Therefore, I got no sleep. NONE. Barely an hour in a single stretch, at most. Every noise that little mouse made, I was outta that bed and in his face to check on him. The raging hormones would not let me do anything else but that. Hi there, rooming-in advocates and co-sleepers. YOU SUCK. Shut up, and let all of us first-time mommies get some freaking sleep.
Exhausted to the point of being unable to form coherent thoughts, I soldiered on. I nursed him and nursed him and nursed him, until 2 a.m. He cried and he cried and he cried. He just wasn’t getting enough milk out on his own. Good thing I’d bought a manual breast pump. I pumped for about half an hour and I think somewhere in that time, the Husband got up and gave him some formula we’d taken home from the hospital (thank the Lord). By the end of that, my hands ached, I was so sore I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t stop sobbing.
The next day we decided we were not messing around. We went out and bought a higher-end electric breast pump. For the next three months, I pumped at least five to seven times a day, while also trying to teach him to nurse from me, while also giving him formula because I just wasn’t enough for him, even with pumping.
They say breastfeeding is especially hard once Mommy goes back to work. Darlings, let me tell you, it is harder when Daddy goes back to work and Mommy stays home. See, while I’m at home with the baby and I need to pump, I have to DO SOMETHING with the baby while I’m hooked up to my little medieval torture device. Working moms may find it difficult to schedule a time and place to pump, but their employers are required by law to let breastfeeding moms do this. Also, working moms don’t have to figure out how to keep the baby safe and occupied while they are pumping. I had nobody to help me after the Husband went back to work. Nobody. A week after giving birth, I was alone all day with a hyper little dog in an apartment with The Baby Who Ate Fort Wayne.
After about a week or two of pumping and trying to nurse, we ran out of all free samples of formula. I then found myself in the position I thought I would never have to be in. I became a mom who buys baby formula. I cried for three days as I watched my Ideal Mother Earth Goddess image of myself dissolve into warm water like so much expensive, cow’s-milk-based powder. This was the most difficult mental hurdle I’ve ever had to cross.
Meanwhile, I tried everything. I drank water all day, every day until I peed clear. I drank herbal tea with fenugreek. I drank 4 ounces of wine every day. Then I tried drinking one beer every day. I upped my intake of vegetables and cut out alcohol. I tried warm compresses and plenty of sleep. I ate more protein and less sugar and processed foods. I nursed-nursed-nursed and pumped-pumped-pumped to try to kickstart my supply, based on the “supply-and-demand” mantra all the experts repeated to me. Nothing worked. I just wasn’t enough.
Three months. That’s about as long as I could take it. I stand in that weird gray area between low milk production and choosing not to breastfeed. At three months, I’d lost the baby weight, but I was starting to gain food weight because of all the extra calories I was taking in to increase milk supply. My body was telling me it was simply time to stop. We’d gotten to the point where Little Dude was getting more formula than breast milk at every feeding, and so I think my body was trying to tell me to put my boobs out of their misery, to just let it go. Shortly after his three month birthday, I started counting calories. In two days, my milk was gone. I cried again, as you do.
I still believe breast milk is best. There’s no debate about that. Every stinking can of formula says so on the label. Sure, it’s probably required by law that they print that, and I’m glad someone is making them do so. I’m also very glad that the breastfeeding pendulum has swung so far that it is no longer viewed as low class. I once asked my dear, sweet grandma if she breastfed any of her eight children. She came back with an immediate and almost-astonished, “Oh, no!” Still, all eight of her kids grew up to be healthy, happy and successful adults.
Likewise, I have several girlfriends who chose from day one not to nurse. They took the pill that dried them up. From what I can see, those kids are as happy, healthy and intelligent as one would expect any well-cared for child to be. Also? My formula-fed, crib-sleeping, fully-vaccinated baby is now nearly eight months old, pushing 25 pounds, has no allergies that I can tell, has had one cold three months ago and none since, and is the happiest, rosiest-cheeked cherub I’ve ever met. Not that I’m biased.
I consider myself lucky to live in the Midwest. I whip out the bottle and formula in public, and nobody ever says boo or bats an eye. Not the case in other parts of the country, where, if all the other mommy bloggers are to be believed, perfect strangers will look at them with disdain for NOT breastfeeding in public. Even expressed milk in a bottle will get you the stink eye from the staunchly pro-breasfteeding community.
It is astounding to me that anybody would make another mom’s choice their business. As long as that baby is being fed, clothed, nurtured and loved, keep your breastfeeding opinions to yourself. A new acquaintance of mine summed it up perfectly: “It’s amazing what we women invent to make each other feel guilty.”
Here, here. Whatever you choose — nursing, pumping, supplementing, or full-on formula from day one, Mazel Tov. Vaya con Dios. Have at it. Every situation is intricately different. And even if it weren’t — even if all of us were built exactly the same and produced the same amount of milk like a herd of perfectly bred milk cows — IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Don’t we all have enough problems in the world to worry about other than fretting over another mother’s right to choose how to feed her baby?
What I do worry about is that the breastfeeding community will become so strident that the pendulum will swing the other way again, and I don’t want that. I don’t want moms to become so fed up with each other’s guilt trips that more choose to give up on breastfeeding altogether, if only to avoid being associated with the pushy, hairy-armpitted, granola crowd. But I guess we’ll see.
In the meantime, my Little Dude is waking up from his nap, and I’ve got a bottle to make.
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