This week has been national breastfeeding week and I've been reading lots of posts from friends and family about it. It made me think a lot about things I wish more people talked about in relation to breastfeeding and things I wish I'd known starting my first breastfeeding journey.
Going into my first birth, I listened and read a lot of things about birth along the lines of "your body knows how to birth" and "trust your body and baby to know what to do". I assumed breastfeeding had similar mantras attached to it. My body and baby were born to breastfeed and I just needed to sit back and not interfere with all the miraculously and inherently instinctual things my body and baby would do. This was not my experience. While, yes, a newborn baby instinctually looks to latch and suckle to sustain its life, it doesn't mean they all somehow know how to do it successfully. As a new mother, my body was eager to produce milk, I didn't instantly know what a good latch looked like or whether I was doing any part of it right.
The first few weeks of breastfeeding all three of my babies has been H. A. R. D. and extremely painful. There are resources that will teach you about latches, tongue ties, and increasing supply, but none of them highlighted that it will (or at least was for me) be painful. Everything the lactation consultants or books I'd read emphasized that breastfeeding shouldn't hurt unless you're doing it incorrectly. Every time my baby latched that first week was like being in labor again and my post-birth nursing contractions have only gotten stronger with each subsequent child (NOT easier like I feel like they should). With my oldest, one of my nipples got a terrible crack that just couldn't heal and I had to start exclusively pumping on that side . I found out about nipple shields and tried to start transitioning back to nursing on that side, but my baby preferred plastic by that point and was super offended if I offered just skin. It wasn't until he was four months that we finally got into exclusively breastfeeding and it wasn't awful anymore.
With my second, I felt like things were going to be a breeze. I had nursed Row for 18 months and felt like an expert. I knew what I was doing now. It was still so painful that first month. I went to the lactation consultants three times outside of the hospital unsure of what I was doing wrong and why it hurt. When she was six weeks old, I got a terrible mastitis infection and ended up in the hospital. We figured things out faster than with my first, sure, but it still wasn't what I'd call easy for that first bit. Also, I got mastitis again when she was 14 months old and ended up in the E.R. again because no one tells you bits like that either. Mastitis is not just a thing of those early days of engorgement and adjusting. It can come at you anytime you aren't getting enough water.
My third was probably my easiest transition to breastfeeding. I had breastfed for a grand total of 3.5 years at this point and knew it was probably going to hurt a whole bunch at the start like it had with the others. It did, but I knew about when to expect the pain to pass. I wasn't afraid to openly nurse without a cover. I felt confident in our ability to be successful and journey on despite all the hard things that come along with nursing. I had a super supportive husband and breastfeeding wasn't foreign.
Here I am a few weeks from starting another breastfeeding journey with 5.5 years of breastfeeding under my belt. I highlighted all the hard bits about it because I wish I'd known some of that going into it. The other side I wished I'd known is that it DOES get better. Suddenly, I was able to nurse anywhere, anytime without stress, pain or embarrassment. I loved nursing my babies in the end and they sure loved it too. I'm a huge supporter of breastfeeding and wish it was talked about so much more. There are these weird layers to it I wish I could banish from our society. Breasts are seen as sexual objects so it's "gross" or inappropriate to breastfeed your baby, when really that is the sole purpose of a female having breasts. The reasons attracting a male to them is that they are a signal that "hey, this potential mate could feed your offspring". It makes me SO angry that women are told to cover up when breastfeeding. It should be their choice to do so, but I think most wouldn't if we didn't have this stigma attached to it. Covering up adds another annoying thing to maneuver while trying to figure things out. My babies HATED having their faces covered and I don't blame them at all.
Honestly, I think the hardest parts about breastfeeding, birthing and raising children come down to two gaping holes in our culture. The first hole being that our culture does not revere women for being able to create and sustain life. At all. All parts of feminity, the things that ONLY women can do, are seen as a very unimportant and have so little respect attached to them. Fed is always, alway best. To all my friends who can't breastfeed or struggled or made the choice to not, I see you. This is in no way meant to shame you or feel bad. Society is already too good at shaming women and pitting them against one another. Man has figured out a way to not need a woman to sustain a life in the way of formula. It's a miraculous thing that no baby needs to die of starvation if a woman cannot produce milk and it always will be. Somewhere along the way though we stopped seeing the ability to breastfeed as something spectacular since you can just pop into the grocery store to find a replacement for breastmilk. We no longer have to search out another woman who could potentially feed our babies or do what too many of our ancestors did and say goodbye to a baby too early. Instead of marveling that a woman's body can somehow create a constant stream of nourishment for another human being, we've decided it's not really a big deal. Instead of finding a way to embrace all our sisters unable to breastfeed while simultaneously supporting and cheering on the other sisters who could breastfeed, we've turned things into sides or camps. Which leads into this other giant hole in our culture, we don't have a "normal" support system for women.
Most cultures not only revere women for being women, but there are giant support networks for the gargantuan task of creating and raising a human being. Women are surrounded by female family members and friends who all lend their wisdom and expeiences of birth, breastfeeding, and child-rearing to the other mothers in their circle. Even more so than just having access to multiple resources of knowledge, these women have access to a constant flow of legitimate support. You slept 20 minutes last night cluster feeding your baby? Your aunt, sister, mother, female in-law of any nature is there to help. You can't get the baby to latch right without it hurting? There's multiple people in your home or on your street who can help you. All the messages sent to American women are "you should be able to do this on your own and recovery very quickly from giving birth". Maternity leave is generally 6 weeks long which sends a message loud and clear to everyone that by 6 weeks, your body and mind should have fully recovered and you should absolutely have nursing and taking care of your baby down. You shouldn't need any real help with anything a month and a half after having a baby. What an incredible lie we tell our women. We leave them alone, confused, overwhelmed, exhausted and in pain. No wonder we have an alarming amount of women who suffer with postpartum depression and anxiety. Sure, hormones have their role in creating PPD/PPA, but I firmly believe if women had more support after having children it wouldn't look like this in our country. Many women live away from family or their families aren't very supportive of breastfeeding so it falls entirely on the exhausted mother. When she struggles, she blames herself and feels ashamed that she can't handle it all. She has to give up things like breastfeeding for her mental sanity because there isn't enough support. People are kind of starting to wise up to the important role that husbands, if the woman has one, play in offering support to a new mom. Paternity leave was hardly a thing and is now finally starting to get some traction. Even with that, however, women are still in need of something that is so obviously missing.
Reading all the posts this week has made me ache for my sisters who can't breastfeed and also feel like I'm not allowed to say "I did it!" because it might make them feel bad. I somehow managed to get through all the thrush, pumping, cracked and bleeding nipples, cluster feeding and I'm dang proud of it. Those first three months every single time were haaarrrd, but it was worth it and I'm so glad I pushed through. I had support from my husband, friends and family which I know a lot of people don't. I'm grateful everyday that I was able to nurse as long as I did. There is a narrative that if something is hard it can't simultaneously be beautiful. I've learned the bulk of my most valuable life lessons from experiencing hard things versus those that have been or come easily. I've learned what things are beautiful from having experienced the less beautiful parts of life. I'm grateful breastfeeding wasn't a breeze so I could learn what I'm capable of as a woman and what my body is capable of. I'm grateful it taught me what other women might be going through and ways I could legitimately help them while they slog through the fourth trimester. Here's a virtual nod to all those other moms out there working hard at breastfeeding, you got this.
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| Was still nursing almost 1-year-old Rowan in this picture and there was no way he was going to give it up at this point |
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| Little Lyra was the easiest baby even with all our breastfeeding hiccups in the first six weeks. She was THE hardest to wean two years later |
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| Rodrick was probably my best nurser so he gets a white star or something like that |
