Breastfeeding Is Hard

After ODP and I finished our “breastfeeding journey” as people call these things, I wrote about how I had initially felt weird about doing it at all. I said that my husband pushed me over the edge about it by sharing with me that babies get their mommy’s immune system from breastfeeding. That’s all I needed to hear to stop spinning the idea around and around in my head, and it’s a good thing because as soon as the doctor pulled him out, ODP was placed right on my boob. I didn’t have time to think. The “journey” had begun.

ODP and I spent 13 months doing multiple-hours-per-day boob sessions. There were times when he cried for food and I’d feel resistant to pulling my shirt up or down for him because he spend so long on them. I timed them. Some sessions were ninety minutes. I loved him, and I loved our time together, but I hated that my boobs were his slave. In public, in the parking garage, in the middle of the night multiple times a night—the most frustrating part of my body providing everything his needed was that we were so intertwined. It can be hard to be so needed. It’s a gift, but it’s a gift that can come at a cost.

I often tell the story of sitting with my girlfriends soon after ODP seemed content to have real food and no more boobs and enjoying wine and snacks and telling them how happy I was to have my body back. My stomach had gotten pretty flat again. I had my boobs to myself and ODP’s dada could put him to bed without me there. SWEET FREEDOM had returned to my life. Independence. Agency over my own body. It felt amazing. As I talked about my excitement, a thought flashed into my mind: Now that you’ve said this, you’ll probably get pregnant.

In that moment, I didn’t know that I already was.

When Bianca was born, everything was different. I barely got to see her before they took her away, so I didn’t know how she’d do with the boobs. A lactation consultant came to my room and over pizza and NBA semi-finals or whatever it was that was big for the NBA on TV last May, she and Raz massaged tiny drops of colostrum out of me and into tiny syringes we delivered to the NICU for our daughter. It was strange and sad and kind of humorous all at once. “I got one!” Raz announced every time before sucking it into its little tube and attaching a label with our baby’s name to it.

Once we were able to be in the room with her, Bianca was able to breastfeed and our “journey” began. It was a month or two before we noticed how distracted she’d get while nursing and it wasn’t until she wasn’t gaining weight at an appropriate clip that we had to start digging into what could be happening. How was my supply? Was I losing too much weight? Was I eating enough calories? When she was eating, how many ounces was she getting? How many ounces could her tummy hold? It was a lot. I was feeding on demand, pumping, supplementing myself, and eventually I started supplementing her.

We learned that Baby B has places to go and people to see. She can’t be bothered with sucking on boobies. She prefers the fast flow of bottles, mostly, whereas her brother could have been bothered with boobies all day. Just as having one infant want every ounce of you is frustrating, it’s equally frustrating to have one who would rather practice her rolls and tell you about her day than focus on the job in front of her.

There are so many moms who have so many different stories about breastfeeding—whether they’ve had to pump exclusively, whether their babies have had tongue ties, whether their baby spits up everything s/he takes in. I didn’t know I could be frustrated in such completely opposite ways, and STILL want to give them both my boobs.

Here’s the thing: Breastfeeding is hard. No matter how long you do it, no matter where, no matter how connected you are to your baby. Your husband/baby daddy/neighbor/co-worker/cousin will have opinions, but they’ll never understand the work this extra VOLUNTEER part-time job you took on requires. How much it takes from you, and what it can give back.

But I do. If you’re a breastfeeding mom, well, you GO, girl. I’m right there beside you, hoping to make it to one year with my second baby, and working on being okay with it if we don’t.

I’d love to hear your stories—the highs, the lows, the in-betweens! Breastfeeding is tough, but you’re tougher.