A Year at the Pump, When Breastfeeding Doesn't Work

I grew up as the oldest of six children and following the example of my mother and aunts and cousins and just about everyone around me I always planned to breastfeed my children. At that point it was just a matter of what you did. Baby needs to eat, you have breasts that's just how it works. As I got older and became more aware of the benefits of breastmilk to babies I only became more certain of this idea.

Now, as well as believing this was a good idea I also came in a shape that one would think would make for ideal breast feeding. From the time I was a teenager I was gifted with...to borrow from Monty Python...vast tracks of land. And having lugged the girls around for that many years, paying for the uber expensive and boring bras and enduring the catcalls, they should really be good for something.

So fast forward a while and a lot of other issues and I am pregnant with my darling daughter. The girls leap into action and by about month 7 I'm an additional two cup sizes larger and dripping at random moments. Yay me. By month 9 I'm painfully huge and convinced that not only will I be a breast feeding champ for my child, but also produce enough to feed some small village somewhere. I can donate to causes and all with the vastness of my production.

Then came Little Girl. And Little Girl is about the most precious thing in the entire world, even born, as all babies, red and wrinkly. After some snuggling she's wisked away by the nurses and we see the first inkling of trouble. When the nurse checks LG's suck reflex LG bites the nurse. Nurse blinks and looks at my dear husband and says, "Huh...she's biting me." After a while they got LG to suck, but it was an odd moment.

So they bring LG in to me for our first feeding and LG bites me. There is no sucking. LG does not want to suck. LG doesn't like something about the taste of breast. We try everything that I, dear husband, the nurses and the lactation gurus can think of and we get LG to nurse for about five minutes. The hospital offers me their industrial strength, rip-your-nipples-off breast pump and I go for it because I'm in pain and I'm desperate for LG to eat something. She is also desperate because dang it she's hungry.

This process becomes the status quo for the time in the hospital. Try to feed the kid, fight to feed the kid, get a few drops in the kid, burst into tears, pump, feed the kid with a syringe, kid sleeps soundly and is happy. She wants the product, she just doesn't think it has attractive packaging. (Dear Husband thinks she's crazy).

Home time changes nothing except that we buy a medium strength suck your flesh off pump of our own, which becomes my baby buddy. I fill bottles and put them in the fridge. I feed the baby from the bottle and then she sleeps next to me on the couch while I pump. I am determined that even if I can't get her to latch she's gonna get the best I can offer her.

I pump on the couch. I pump in bed. I pump in the walk-in-closet of our room because I need the light on and don't want to wake up dear husband. I pump in the car. I pump at my mother's house. I pump at friend's homes. I pump in an airplane. I pump in the empty ballroom of a hotel. At a certain point I feel rather like a Dr. Seuss poem. 'And I can feed her here or there and I can feed her anywhere.'

It's nice that all this pumping means that Dear Husband can be more involved in feeding time. Even the teenage older brothers can snuggle LG and feed her, and those are some kinda amazing moments.

And maybe it's never really easy or convenient, but she's growing like a weed so I'm pretty content. Even when I don't make enough milk to save a small village and I have to add some formula to get by, things are still pretty good. I have a happy, healthy, amazing child and I really can't ask for more.

I kept with the pump for almost 14 months before moving her to moo juice, which she drinks by the gallon and fortunately the cows have an easier time keeping up with her appetite.

So why do I tell this whole story? Because it was hard, but we can do hard things and to encourage mothers who are struggling to decide what to do when it comes to all the options mothers are given and all the pressure we all feel.

So to the Mom who is trying to decide what to do and despairing, because of criticism, because of difficulties or because of self doubt... You are wonderful. You are Mom. And you will find your own way. Embrace it without shame or fear. The years when they are little are so fleeting, don't miss the moment worrying about the right way to Mother. Breast, formula, pump or some combination of the above doesn't matter. Just get in there and do it. You got this.