On breastfeeding

Its joy and agony

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Nine and a half months into Simone’s life, our breastfeeding journey is coming to its end. It’s been happening for a while now, gradually. But yesterday she bit me, hard, and there's still bite marks on my right boob this morning, and so I think it is time. 

It started a few weeks into Simone’s life, when the doctor said, “let’s keep an eye on her.” She was gaining weight slowly enough that we had to come back for an extra doctor’s appointment. After every feeding, I was supposed to offer Simone a bottle of expressed milk or formula.

I dutifully pumped and pumped. I put lanolin on my poor nipples, which stained a good handful of shirts and bras. This is no small task, as I was already feeding Simone every three hours. Add a 30-minute pump after every time and squeezing in any sleep was almost impossible. Slowly, I started to lose my mind. That’s when we opened a bottle of formula and never looked back. I went to bed (halle-freakin-luiah!!) and Tony fed the baby. This was a revelation because it meant I could SLEEP for more than a few hours in a row and Tony could feed Simone. This saved me and all of us.

I cried. I felt a sort of existential sense of failure that I couldn’t feed my baby 100% with my body. I also cried in relief. Sweet, sweet sleep.

Nobody else cared. Simone seemed equally happy with a boob and a bottle. Combination feeding seems sort of brilliant to me: the best of both worlds. Breastfeeding is great but it is enormously physically and emotionally taxing.

Before I had Simone, I felt neutral about breastfeeding. I had breast reduction surgery when I was not quite seventeen. Probably, that wouldn’t interfere with my ability to breastfeed, but there was a small chance that it would. I was relieved when after a few days of not knowing if anything was actually happening, milk squirted from my nipple. It was magic! (It is magic!)

But almost immediately, there was SO MUCH PRESSURE to breastfeed.

The lactation consultant in the hospital was incredibly helpful. She recommended we watch the hospital video on breastfeeding. The first half was full of useful tips and info. The second half was straight up propaganda. Basically: “if you don’t nurse your baby, you’ll never bond with them and you’ll both be fucked for life.” Tony and I started laughing because it was so heavy-handed and silly.

In the early days, I was tracking her feedings on an app. Left side: 27 minutes. Right side: 32 minutes. Etc. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes I would breastfeed for 12 hours a day. I think one day I logged 15 hours. Way more than a full-time job!

With time, of course, the whole process becomes more efficient. Still, I found myself resentful of people who exclaimed, “breastfeeding is free.” Is women’s labor worth nothing?

I loved reading Emily Oster, who reassuringly writes about data-backed arguments that breastfeeding is not actually all that crucial.

She writes: “It is not that the claims about benefits are completely made up. They are mostly based on some data. The trouble is that the evidence they are based on is often seriously biased by the fact that women who breastfeed are typically different from those who do not. Breastfeeding rates differ dramatically across income, education and race… But what the evidence says is that the popular perception that breast milk is some kind of magical substance that will lead your child to be healthy and brilliant is simply not correct.”

So why was I so committed to breastfeeding? Why were all my mom friends obsessed with power pumping, lactation elixirs and cookies with brewer’s yeast, eating a lot of oatmeal, anything we conceivably control? (These are all things that are supposed to boost supply.) I think I have some work to do around this in therapy. I think I channeled my type A, overachiever-ness into what was the big task in my life in those early days. If I was going to be feeding this little nugget all day, I wanted to do it in the best possible way, damnit.

I’m working on valuing other things more: Simone’s fluffy hair and baby monologues. The way she rests her face on my face, just for a second. The way she sometimes wakes up with a big stretch and a big fart.

And why doesn’t everyone tell you how hard the whole nursing thing is? Almost everyone I talked to experienced infuriating undersupply or a painful oversupply. Issues with latching and tongue ties and lip ties. Inflamed ducts and mastitis that sent them to the hospital. So many tears and sleepless nights. Even if the ending was happy, it took a lot to get there.

Still, I’m grateful I could breastfeed. I’m grateful for my pumping bra so I could pump and answer emails or read my kindle. I’m grateful for formula for helping to feed Simone, too. I’m grateful there is middle ground and not just all or nothing. I’m grateful for my body, which I hated so hard for so many years, for feeding my baby, even if only some of the time. I’m grateful for the cute little sounds Simone makes when she’s eating. I love her and the journey our little family is on together.

PS This breastfeeding humor made me laugh so hard I cried. It’s frighteningly accurate.

Pumping life, June 2020