Breast Feeding-the early days.

I never understood why women would get so upset if breast feeding didn't work out for them and their babies. I've heard many stories of babies who didn't latch properly, women who didn't have enough milk, and babies who couldn't tolerate the proteins in their own mother's milk. To me, it didn't seem like a big deal. I mean, just buck up and buy some formula already, what's the big deal?

I understand now. Peach is a good eater. She's been getting plenty of milk, and had surpassed her birth weight by several ounces in less than a week. She doesn't, however, quite have the latch down yet.

The other day, she ripped one of my nipples to shreds to the point where I stopped nursing her on that side and just expressed and froze the milk so that that nipple would have some time to heal. By the end of the day, it seemed to have healed enough to try again, and we had a successful day and a half using both breasts.

This morning, my midwife came for a scheduled visit and we discussed the latching problems. She observed, and saw that Peach's mouth was wide enough open, and that she seemed to have a good latch overall. I could see this as well, and thought that maybe we had it all worked out. My midwife went on to suggest switching up on different nursing positions in order to change up the spots where the most stress was, as well as showed me some ways to utilize pillows better to keep Peach's latch. When the midwife left, I was feeling confident that from there on in, Peach and I would have this whole nursing thing down pat.

That is, until early this evening when I looked down while she was feeding and watched as the blood pooled around her mouth and my nipple and ran down my belly. She got me good. Real good.

Right away, I took her off the breast and started to thaw out some expressed milk so she could have a bottle. For the past couple of nights, I've been giving Armondo bottles to feed her so they could have some bonding time while I got things done, like shower.

I told my midwife about the bottle a night thing, and of course, she told me what I knew already: feeding a young baby a bottle can cause nipple confusion and can lead to latching problems.

So, after I took her off the breast and handed her to Armondo to hold while I thawed out some milk, I couldn't help but start crying. Here I was, making her a bottle so that she's not ripping my nipples to shreds some more, because she has a bad latch, but in making her drink out of a bottle, I'm making it harder for her to learn how to latch properly. It seemed like a bit of a vicious circle, and at that particular moment, as I took Peach back from Armondo, and started feeding her the bottle, I could not see any way of resolving this issue. Armondo was finishing up giving Cherry a bath at the time, and I sat in the living room feeding Peach with tears running down my face.

I had calmed down significantly by the time Cherry's story time came around and all four of us went into her room to take part. Cherry was drinking her last bottle of the day as Daddy read the story, and I had Peach in my lap and she was drinking her bottle.

Well, Cherry finished her bottle first, and wanted Peach's bottle. She has never shown any interest or want for the breast (she was weened at five months), but when she saw Peach sipping at that bottle, Cherry wanted it. NOW. She started tantruming, so I handed Peach to Armondo, and they made their exit while I tried to calm Cherry down and explain to her how the milk was different, and that she had already finished her bottle anyway. Yeah. She's 18 months. I'm pretty sure the whole concept flew over her head. So she screamed. And screamed. She wouldn't let me hold her, she wouldn't get into her bed, she would not let me help her calm down. So, I turned off the light and left her in her room. Then I went to the couch (Armondo was in our bedroom with Peach), and I sobbed by myself for the next 15 minutes while Cherry pounded on her door and continued to tantrum about the injustice of it all.

So, now, not only was I failing Peach by giving her a bottle, and further ruining any chance of getting this latch thing down right, but I have also upset Cherry, who otherwise had had a pretty tantrum-free day.

I felt like a pretty crummy mother.

See, being a mother is all about nurturing, right? I mean, it's about hugs, and kisses, and love and giggles, and it's also about nourishing. And as a mother with plenty of milk, I should be able to nourish my little one, and that is being threatened, and it scares me.

I can't completely articulate what it feels like, but I'm sure it's sort of akin to a man with impotency problems.

But really, what's the big deal? I mean, just buck up and buy some formula, right? Well, that feels like giving up. It feels like failure.

And part of the whole problem is in my head too. And I think that in itself is making it harder for Peach to latch on. I KNOW it's going to hurt when she gets her grip, which makes me tentative, which makes it harder for her to get a good latch. (I'm having the same problem with another bodily function in that, I KNOW it'll hurt my stitches when I sit down to take care of business, which only makes me dread it, which, in turn, is causing constipation, which in turn, makes the whole business even MORE painful.)

The funny thing is, I don't even like nursing. I don't like the feeling of my breasts filling up, I don't like the heaviness, I don't like the leaking, or the sweatiness that goes along with it. I don't like having to sit down and stop what I'm doing in order to find a comfortable position and location to pull up my shirt and feed my child.

But I like the IDEA of it.

I like the idea of nourishing my child from my own body. I like the forced closeness (Cherry stopped cuddling when she was weened, and really hasn't been much of a cuddler since.). I like that there's no waste involved, in that you don't need bottle liners, you don't need to wash nipples (except in the shower once a day, but you know what I mean), you don't have to heat the milk (not that you really have to with formula if you don't want to, but just stick with me here). And that it's "natural". You're feeding your human child human milk instead of formula derived from a completely different animal.

And, being that I'm a mother, I'm SUPPOSED to be able to feed my child.

And that's what's bothering me the most.

I'm not giving up yet. In fact, I still have one nipple that's still usable for the time being, so I have fed her with that one since the bloody incident, and have expressed a bit from the injured one. But I am thisclose to switching to formula. And that bothers me.