my experience with not-breastfeeding
i can't begin to explain how happy i am to have found other mothers who could not breastfeed. it seems like ever since the day i went into labor, my life's intent has been to ... let's say ...
humble me.
i am studying to be a midwife so of course i planned a home birth. and of course i planned to breastfeed. well, after 62 hours of hard labor, with contractions never more than five minutes apart for 45 hours of that, i was only dilated to a 7, and i was nearly delirious. so off to the hospital i went for the awful experience i could probably have expected and yet was still surprised about. i gave birth within an hour of arriving at the hospital, and basically only used their table since i had no monitor, iv, episiotomy, epidural -- nothing. for so long i wondered why it happened so quickly once i reached the hospital, and i truly believe now that my fight-or-flight response kicked in, and rather than stopping my labor, it just kicked it into high gear so i could have my baby as quickly as possible and, on a primitive level, get him to safety. so some would say that i still had the birth i wanted -- vaginal, more or less intervention-free, and certainly drug-free -- and yet those people could never comprehend the immense pain i feel
every day at the way my son was brought into this world.
immediately following the delivery my son was taken to a table on the other side of the room, where he was suctioned and slapped for ten minutes. when he finally came to me, he was clean and swaddled with just his little face peaking out, and i felt NOTHING. i was flat. it didn't compute that all that work had resulted in this little alien creature. they took him away for "observation" and i, this incredibly assertive, loud-mouth, know-it-all woman, didn't even think to object. later they returned him to me and i tried to put him to the breast -- nothing. they gave him a bath, against my objections, and of course he got cold. rather than allowing him to lay against my skin, they insisted on taking him to the nursery to put him under the lights. he was gone for hours. and i am ashamed to say that i didn't care. i hadn't slept for four days and all i wanted to do was sleep like death.
finally i became more interested in putting isaiah to the breast. but nothing happened. he sucked and cried and sucked and cried, but nothing came out. he'd been given a bottle in the nursery (again, against my explicit wishes), and he couldn't get the sucking right. they tried to put me on a supplement (the tube thing), but he couldn't latch on properly. this problem was compounded by my flat nipples. he wasn't getting a drop no matter how hard i tried. they promised to send a lactation consultant to me but it was hours and hours until they did. when she came, she tried several different techniques and nothing worked. finally she brought me an industrial pump (which i now know was ridiculous because all i had was colostrum), which also did not work. they sent me home with bottles of formula and told me to keep trying to train him on the breast. they were, of course, very supportive of me trying to breastfeed, while sending me home with a "gift bag" full of advertizements for formula, coupons, samples, etc... hm. very motivating. :LOL
this is the stickling point that i reach with lactivists who say, "oh, so many women just can't handle the crying while the baby is learning to breastfeed, so they give up and go on the bottle." it is EXCRUCIATING to know that your child is starving, you're full of delicious, nutricious food, and YOU CAN'T GIVE IT TO HIM. all you want to do is satisfy his hunger, to make him happy. we have an incredible driving need, biologically, to satisfy our infants' needs, especially hunger. in some cases, sure, it's laziness, or squeamishness, or impatience. but sometimes it's a beautiful and fulfilling desire to make your child happy, to see his or her eyes roll with satisfaction at the feeling of fullness.
look, we all know "breast is best." we've all read the statistics about ear infections, colds and coughs, allergies, etc. we've all heard the talk about bonding. as a training midwife i've heard it more than anyone. and i believe it, really i do. but when you get right down to it, in the middle of the third night of having our son home, he stopped taking the supplement at my breast. he'd take the formula in his mouth and spit it right out. he screamed for six hours straight before falling into an exhausted sleep. i squeezed my breasts until i thought they would pop. not a single drop of fluid appeared. i sobbed and raged and screamed until 8 in the morning, when i called my new-mother friend in desperation and asked her to please come feed my child from her breasts. she was over in five minutes and gave my son his first full meal since he'd been born. my heart just broke at seeing how well he latched on, watching him stare at my friend's face as he gulped and gulped. he fell into his first full-stomach sleep and i have never been so relieved in my life. any mother in her right mind would give her child a bottle rather than starving him. i read stories of mothers who persevered so long that their children are hospitalized, and i think, that's a success story? maybe breastfeeding is much more about you than about your child in that case. that seems like pure selfishness to me, to starve your child so you can feel "empowered."
later that day my midwife came by to see if she could figure out what the problem was. we spent two hours poring over my breast size, shape, structure, pushing, pulling, yanking like you wouldn't believe. and at the end of it i finally started getting a few drops out. she felt my breasts for an hour or so before finally saying that she suspected i had recessed milk glands. the milk glands usually start about an inch behind the nipple, but mine are more like five inches behind. the theory behind breastfeeding is that the infant stimulates the milk glands with his mouth, basically expressing the milk himself. this is of course assisted by letdown, various hormones, state of mind of the mother, position, etc. with recessed milk glands, however, my son couldn't stimulate them, so the milk couldn't come down. perhaps if he could have worked at my breasts for longer than thirty seconds in a sitting, something may have worked out. but i've been blessed with the world's most impatient baby, and thirty seconds is about as long as he gives me (even now) before he gets so upset he can't eat.
i visited various lactation consultants and they all confirmed this finding. the other problem was that my glands were so far back, even pumps didn't work. i was encouraged to try hand-expressing and continue to use my son as a stimulant by essentially using my breasts as a pacifier -- a nice idea that my son wasn't exactly receptive to due to my flat nipples.
hand-expressing necessitated the use of supplementary formula as i didn't produce very much. i used everything available to boost milk supply and never saw a difference, although i did sweat maple syrup for quite a while. hand-expressing was one of the more frustrating experiences in my life. my son has never been a napper and so i had to hope and pray he'd be quiet for fifteen minutes five to seven times a day -- what a laugh. but i did my best. the problem that arose was that i had to squeeze soooo hard to get the milk out, and i had to really dig in to reach my glands -- so i became quite bruised and so swollen, my scant milk supply started to drop. it was so frustrating trying to keep my son calm while slaughtering my back and shoulders with that awkward repetitive position, plus trying to keep the little cup stable while the milk dripped in. i can't tell you how many times i screamed in frustration and threw that little cup at the wall after it tipped over. but i cannot deny the triumph i felt at getting a whole 2 oz. from both breasts combined in a sitting! unfortunately that was the most i ever got. i had been using those nipple attachment things to try to draw out my flat nipples, and ten days or so after my son was born, my midwife suggested i try an industrial pump.
this is where my story gets really ugly. the pump only drew out milk on maximum. i don't know how many of you used an industrial breast pump on maximum seven times a day for twenty minutes at a time, but the pain is excruciating. i am a redhead and my skin is very thin and sensitive, and after a few days i was already starting to develop sores. i could actually see the pump pulling bits of skin off my nipples, as disgusting as that is.
: my nipples stung so much i could barely handle wearing clothes. intimacy with my husband was out of the question; i could barely handle hugs. my breasts leaked all the time. i continued to try to use myself as a pacifier for my son but he never responded. i never got very much and it never seemed to satisfy my son, but i was happy he was getting milk from me at all. i thought, maybe i can do this for a year. surely my nipples will toughen. i was happy he was getting some sort of nourishment from me, some immunities. but a month into pumping, i started bleeding profusely. all the milk i pumped had to be dumped out because of the blood in it. my nipples became horribly mutilated. it was disgusting. i would sob pumping, determined that i would get over the pain, and toughen my nipples, and eventually get over this and be able to give my son my milk again. my midwife came to visit, took one look at my nipples, and told me to stop flagellating myself. she said, "your son is surviving fine on the formula. he is healthy, happy, growing and thriving. you have done the best you can. let yourself heal!" i cried that night putting the pump away for the last time. i told myself that i would just let my nipples heal and then i'd start pumping again. but by the time i could have pumped again, my milk had dried up.
i have to say that having justification for stopping the pumping was such a relief. i wasn't enjoying my son, or my life. i was in constant pain, physically and emotionally. i
was flagellating myself. this was compounded by incredible debilitating pain in my back and shoulders (recently diagnosed as fibromyalgia), and pain and pressure from a prolapse i developed after the birth. i was so exhausted at the end of the day, i scared my husband on multiple occasions by not even stirring when my son, lying right next to me, would scream in the middle of the night. i stopped pumping, stopped hand-expressing, and i was finally able to relax and enjoy life with my son. i could play with him, hug him, and be affectionate with my husband again. and i totally consider that worth it. i would rather have a fulfilling relationship with my son (and husband) and have him living on formula, than be miserable, repulsive, resentful, in constant pain, and deeply depressed. it is sad to say, but it was only after i gave up the idea of breastfeeding my son that i was able to bond with him. so what does that say about breastfeeding being essential to bonding?
but i still feel enormous guilt. i tell people that i'm studying to be a midwife and they look at my bottle-fed son with skepticism. i feel ashamed every time i feed him in public. sometimes i'll even feed him in the bathroom to avoid the "looks" -- you know, the "looks"? and every time i feed my son, i still ache to put him to my breast. shouldn't i be feeling better after all this time? shouldn't that driving biological function have diminished after four months? but it gets stronger all the time. i've even considered using a supplementary system again -- so that if he wasn't being fed
by the breast, he'd at least be fed
at the breast. but then i wonder if it would even work after all this time. those little tubes are so tiny and my son is such an avid eater.
my son is four months old now. i use cloth diapers. my son has never had diaper rash. he laughs, giggles, sleeps through the night, and grins when he sees me. he slept in our room the first four months and then moved to a crib when he started sleeping through the night. he's teething already and i was told to start him on rice cereal at 3 1/2 months old. he's doubled in weight from his original 8 lb. 3 oz. -- he's hefty, pudgy, and beautiful. he responds immediately to voices and faces and even mimics me when i say "dadada" or "mamama." he follows my hands when i use sign language with him. he rolled, held up his head, and sat with support well before the expected time. we're raising him organic, vegan and making our own baby food. i used a sling as long as he'd let me, but he hated being confined. now that he sits with support he can use it again, and i keep him close to my body as much as i can. we would have kept him in our room much longer but i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and i absolutely had to have my rest. and now i am so grateful that my husband can get up with him in the night and feed him without even rousing me, because before i was diagnosed i'd been in so much pain i couldn't even pick up my son anymore, and i feel asleep at the drop of a hat. now i am coming alive to my son. i am convinced that "bonding" through breastfeeding has much more to do, in general, with the mother than with the baby. my son bonded with no problem. i only recently bonded entirely. i'm struggling still with a pretty serious post-partum depression, but i adore my son. he is strong and capable, intelligent and healthy, and he knows i'm his mama. do i think he would be even better if he had been breast-fed? maybe. but i never feel a lack in my little boy. he is perfect and i'd never let anyone convince me otherwise.
). But by then, I was already at my wit's end when it came to my attempts to bf. I don't know what, if anything, I could have done differently to promote a bf'ing relationship. Every hold I could use for breastfeeding, she hated, and it's difficult to feed a screaming baby :/
I had the same issue, and with how little I got from each pumping, sitting in front of that thing, the only thing I could think was "Mooooooooooooooooooo..." everytime I hooked up to it, just seeing less and less of my already small supply at every pumping. Those things HURT when you're using them on maximum 7-9 times a day 
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that was so hard to read, I can't even imagine what you've gone through during that time. I believe you can bond just as well w/out bf. I believe I bonded just fine with my baby even though she was feed by bottle.
