The First Days of Breastfeeding are Very Very Hard

Breastfeeding is hard. In the beginning. 

In the beginning, I cried almost every day. I thought, those first few days in the hospital, that my baby was starving. My first job as a mother, and I was failing. 

The baby loses weight. For a week or so. That's hard to swallow. A couple drops of the thick, yellow liquid, colostrum, drip from your body. How can that sustain my newborn baby?

I knew from reading that this stuff was the good stuff--the real antibody-laced serum--the stuff that would coat his insides with protection from all sorts of sickness and disease. I knew I needed to resist giving any other liquid--no water, no formula, no nothing. I knew in my heart of hearts that my body knew exactly what it needed to do. I needed To Wait. To Trust. To Believe.

People have been having babies forever. This is how We Survived. How hard could it be?

But I'm not going to lie, the reality of it, watching my baby sip wee tiny drops, and then fall asleep, terrified me. Was I doing it right? As a new mother, with hormones raging like jet planes, I fought my head and my tears all day. 'Baby. Dear baby, pleeaseee. Eat...'

The bright-eyed lactation consultant zips in. She has machines and droppers and pumps. When my baby falls asleep at the wheel, she cranks his arm. 'Wake up baby,' and he does. She shows me different holds; she shows me how to get him to latch on. She tells me everything's going to be all right. It's all normal. I'm feeling better. 

She gets me hooked up to The Breast Pump. If you've ever seen one of these, especially the hospital grade pumps, you'll know why women are scared shitless of breastfeeding and pumping and all the rest. Feel like a dairy cow much? 

I think panic set in here. With the tubes and the wheeze of the pump and the harsh pull on my nipples, I felt separate from my body. It took over 30 minutes to get 5 mil. When it was over though, I felt better as I gave Dax his food through a dropper. It was sustenance I could SEE. But, what kind of message did the exercise send? Left to its own devices, my body can't be trusted to provide...

(After I left the hospital, I rarely pumped. Pumping makes it so you decide how much to produce. When baby nurses on demand, it creates a symbiotic relationship between you and baby. Your body produces exactly how much baby needs. How amazing is that?) 

Those first few days at home were absolutely some of the hardest days of my life. On Day Four, my milk came in, and oh my god, it came in with a furry. I looked like Dolly Parton. Seriously. I was sure my breasts would never recover from this amount of stretching. 

The pain. Oh my god, The Pain. I felt like they were bursting at the seams. I tried cooled cabbage, an old wife's tale, to ease the swelling. I tried ice packs. I tried hot baths. I tried Tylenol. Nothing worked. I wept every single day. I whimpered and whined and threw pity parties. Daily. My baby had trouble latching on because the girls were so swollen. I panicked again. I pumped three times to relieve the pain. It Sucked. Four days of agony. 

After the swelling stopped, another wave of fun occurred. Suddenly, I was drowning in rivers of milk. As my body tried to regulate itself, milk ran down my stomach while I ate dinner. I woke up in drenched sheets--my body in a pool of my own breast milk and sweat. (Because after giving birth, you also sweat. A lot. I swear I lost pounds of water in that first week.) 

My poor son would choke and sputter as he tried to keep up with my supply. If he pulled away, he would get sprayed in the face. I felt out of control. I felt tired. I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. 

THEN, as the body struggles to level off, your nipples start to feel the pain of their new lot. The entire breast sometimes aches for seemingly no reason. The nipple feels chafed and raw and red and stinging. No nipple cream helps. And when a milk duct decides to crap out, there is no greater pain. Only time heals it. Insert more tears here. 

All of this madness lasts about two weeks. Two really really really really tough weeks. Seriously tough. Like The Hardest Ever. No lie.

But I want to tell you. I want to tell you with all my might that if you push through this time. If you can muster up the energy, the wherewithal, the will, to make it to the other side of this, You Are Rewarded. Rewarded with a very special thing shared between a mother and her babe.

One day, it all just clicks. Your boobies calm down, your nipples get used to it, and your supply is equal to your baby's need. That's when things get pretty darn cool. 

Breastfeeding is super simple now. Easier than making my baby bottles and dish washing and bib wearing and spitting up. He eats when he's hungry, he stops when he's full. I have only a vague idea of how many ounces he consumes. 

I want to tell you mostly though about THE JOY OF BREASTFEEDING. The joy is just this indescribable glorious thing. It is the experience of a beautiful bond. It is the knowledge that my own body can give this baby life. It is the knowledge that my body produces the perfect formula for this specific child. My child.

It is the knowledge that when he is crying, the one thing that NEVER FAILS to calm him is breastfeeding. It is the satisfaction of seeing the love and comfort on my baby's face when he nurses. It is the absolute calmness of those moments when he nurses in the rocking chair, and drifts off to sleep in my arms. To me, breastfeeding symbolizes pure love & joy.  

The other day I went to the art museum with a couple of girls from my mom's group. One of the girls, who, like me, had a tiny infant strapped to their chest in a sling, said a very poignant thing: "Before I had a baby, I always heard people talk about how breastfeeding is best. About how 'breast is best,' for health reasons. And that's why I wanted to breastfeed my little girl. But what I didn't know was how much I would LOVE breastfeeding. How come nobody talks about that? How come nobody talk about much you'll fall in love with it? I wish I would've known THAT."