When my daughter was born our first feed went pretty well, I was very relieved as I have one flat and one inverted nipple so knew there was a chance that I’d have some trouble, she also had a retracted lower jaw, which means she can’t open her mouth quite as wide as most babies. However our next feed, and all of them after that were not so good. Mackenzie could attach to the flat nipple ok, but not the inverted one, and the midwives at our hospital were terrible, each one would give you conflicting advice and instead of coaching they would snatch my daughter and my breast and force them onto one another, one midwife did this and wouldn’t listen when I said she wasn’t attached properly and when she finished I had a big blood blister on my nipple. Another midwife tried to tell me I was starving and dehydrating my daughter and that they had to give her formula. I refused this though and at that point remembered something my sister had told me “If you have any problems ask for a lactation consultant and don’t listen to anybody else”. I didn’t even know if the hospital had one I’d never heard of one before but at this point asked to see one. The midwife tried to refuse me but I insisted and sure enough a lactation consultant was provided.

To begin with we tried using a breast pump to pull my nipple out but when this didn’t work she gave me a nipple shield and said that the midwives would probably try to tell me that you can’t use a nipple shield before your milk has come in because the colostrum is too thick but this isn’t true and she will get some out. This worked wonders on the inverted nipple and the other nipple she was ok with, I thought my troubles were over. The next day my daughter was admitted to the special care nursery to be observed as she’d turned blu on me and they had me feed her every 3 hours and then express to make sure she was getting enough milk because she had dropped a bit of weight (perfectly normal in the first few days I thought). The midwife who’d tried to give me formula turned the breastpump on full ball on my good nipple and tore it to shreds, there was blood everywhere and over 12m later you can still see where the big tear in my nipple was. It was so painful I couldn’t feed from it so had to use the nipple shield on that side as well. Then to top things off I developed an infection in my uterus which the midwife ignored so I ended up very sick and on an antibiotic drip for a few days. It was so painful I could barely move, every time my daughter needed a nappy change it would take me a good half an hour to get up and do it, plus breastfeeding her was made so much more difficult. They also took a sample of my breastmilk for testing at this time and discovered that on top of everything else I had mastitis.

Finally I got through all the infections and was able to go home with my new baby. When I got home I began suffering from sciatica, which made it very uncomfortable to find a comfortable position to sit in, to feed Mackenzie. I would have to sit on 3 pillows on the couch then I had another 3 pillows arranged on and around me to assist me to hold and feed Mackenzie. To rub more salt in the wound a friend came to visit with her 10mo breastfed baby and of course when she fed her it was so easy and quick and painless it reduced me to tears. She assured me she suffered to begin with and it would get easier but I couldn’t foresee it. I continued to suffer from multiple infections and bouts of mastitis plus a case of nipple thrush (OUCH) for the next few weeks and was constantly on antibiotics, which of course went through my milk causing Mackenzie to have a very upset tummy and lots of diarrhoea. Through all of this, and I can’t emphasise just how painful it was, not feeding was never an option. I never thought of giving up feeding or switching to formula cause it would be easier. Instead I just became more determined to stick it out and it was going to get easier if it was the last thing I ever did!

I decided early on that I wanted to feed for a minimum of 12m or until I got Mackenzie off the nipple shields – whichever was the longer of the two (I’ve since changed my mind and am now well on the way to 2 years old) because I absolutely hated the nipple shields. They took so long to fumble with to get on which meant my daughter would be getting quite distressed, plus many people had never seen or heard of them before so they attracted quite a bit of attention. I tried a few different ways to wean her off them but she wouldn’t touch my nipples without them. I hated that it had to be so difficult – why couldn’t it be easy for me, like it seemed to be for everyone else? One night I went along to a friends church thing with her and they had a parenting room there where about 6 mothers sat feeding their babies with ease, I was so jealous. I went home so angry and upset, but also all the more determined and funnily enough Mackenzie must have picked up on this because she didn’t even try to fight me then next time I tried to feed her I didn’t even have a shield nearby just in case. She latched on like we’d been doing it like this all along. We never used a shield again I was so happy I sat there and cried for hours – happy tears of course.

I continued to suffer with the infections and mastitis (I had a severe oversupply of milk which was in no hurry to settle down) for the next few months but finally somewhere between 4-6 months it all finally settled down and I was able to enjoy what was now a wonderful, easy breastfeeding relationship with my beautiful daughter. I developed post natal depression and had to go onto medication during that time and was very apprehensive about doing so whilst feeding but it was either that or no medication, giing up the breastfeeding has never been an option, even now when contraception has become an issue (I can’t take the mini pill) I would rather go without if necessary then stop feeding her.

She is now 14mo and still feeding wonderfully, giving her her precious boobies is the best part of the day I sit down, relax and cuddle her, it is so beautiful – like nothing else in the world. I still suffer the odd bout of mastitis – for example if she has a few night feeds in a row then sleeps a full night I’ll wake up very sick but that’s ok, I recognise the signs and my dr is very good about getting onto it early. My plan now is to feed her until at least 2 – give her the chance to self wean but I don’t know if I can go that much further – we’ll see I originally thought I’d only go 12m and I quicklychanged my mind on that. I have seen so many girls/women I know give up early on claiming they “couldn’t” breastfeed when in actual fact they just want their babies to sleep through the night or because they got a small crack in their nipple and it hurt too much, this makes me very sad – especially when I fought so hard to continue to feed Mackenzie. It also makes me feel very sorry for the people who really can’t feed because they would probably do just about anything to be able to and get a bad name in certain circles because of other people. If I could tell new mums anything it is to perservere as much as you can, it really is worth it. Somedays you may question that but I am so proud of myself and my daughter and I are so close as a result of it, I’m so, so glad I did.

I asked Heather some questions about her breastfeeding experiences.

What are your very first memories of breastfeeding? I don’t mean breastfeeding your own babies, but when you were a child or teenager or young adult? As a youngster did you spend much time around nursing mothers?

I don’t remember spending anytime around nursing mothers, but I played ‘house’ endlessly. It seems like a LOT of my play involved babies but I was likely to give them a bottle and I don’t remember having any knowledge of breastfeeding. So, that being said, I don’t have any idea when it started, but by the time I was pregnant I knew I wanted to breastfeed and I wanted a ‘natural’ (for me, at the time, that meant no pain medication) birth. I had for many years been ‘avant guard-ish’ and I picked up on the fact that natural birth and breastfeeding were outside of the norm, a wee bit scandalous. That helped me choose them.

When you were pregnant with your first child what were your plans for feeding your baby. Had you given much thought to breastfeeding, e.g. how long you would breastfeed for? Did you do any preparation for breastfeeding?

My plan when pregnant with my first was to breastfeed for at least 3 months! I hadn’t given it any thought of planning and didn’t do any preparation. When I left the hospital after the birth I used the hospital’s little pamphlet on breastfeeding as my guide.

How did you find breastfeeding in the early days? Was breastfeeding what you expected it to be? What hurdles did you encounter and how did you overcome them? Did any of these experiences affect how you managed breastfeeding with subsequent children?

I had a LOT of difficulties in the beginning weeks, I had inverted nipples and I didn’t do anything to prepare (see above ;o) I became horribly engorged, baby had a bad latch, and by the 10th day I had cracks that went all the way around both nipples. It hurt like crazy! I talked on the phone with a lactation consultant who had me in tears and just kept telling me that position was important. And then I went to a La Leche League meeting. That’s when everything changed for me. I still had to heal, but I was able to nurse through the pain because I knew I wanted to keep going and that it would be better soon. And it was. With my other kids I have self-made rules, ‘lucky bras’ , and other rituals that keep the cracks away!

As a first-time mom learning to breastfeed, did you have a nearby breastfeeding-friendly support network in those early days/weeks/months? If so, what difference did it make to your early experience of breastfeeding?

I was so grateful to my local LLL meeting, the leaders and their lending library. I went to a meeting, and took home to book the continuum concept, that was it for me, I was an attachment parent! I made my first best-mom-friend and we whiled away the days walking and talking with our babies. It made it all good. I didn’t have a computer at the time, so I missed out on the massive amounts of support that are found there now, but maybe that was a good thing because I had to find local support and face-to-face friendship.

How has your own perception of breastfeeding changed from when you were pregnant with your first child, to now?

It’s hard to compare, it’s kind of like asking about the perception of life before kids and after, that’s the thing about having kids, every single perception changes. It’s one big super-hyper-overdrive-paradigm shift. At least if you’re doing it right. And then kids so fully insinuate themselves into your experience that you can’t barely remember yourself before them. Breastfeeding is like that, but I never guessed that I would be one of breastfeeding’s biggest champions, and yet, here I am.

What have learned about yourself, about your children and about the world though your breastfeeding experiences?

Breastfeeding taught me that I am very self-sufficient. That I am just right, exactly made. I learned that my kids are just right, too. They know when to eat, how much, how to be, how to learn, and knowing this makes my parenting different. I try and meet their expectations of me and the world as perfect for them. I know that they are always doing the best they can (given the circumstances) And that the world is made better by the things that they bring to it, simplicity, self-sufficiency, peacefulness, play, love…

Can you share with us the best piece of breastfeeding advice you ever received?

Don’t pull down your shirt ;o)

How would like the world to have changed with regard to breastfeeding education and support by the time your daughters are thinking about having children?

I really hope that there won’t be any issues with breastfeeding in public. It would be nice to have the whole breasts=sex thing struck from our cultural memory. And I really hope that the La Leche League model of mother to mother support will still be around, perhaps reinvigorated.

You’ve recently launched a new book “Simply Give Birth“, a wonderful collection of birth stories. Can you tell us about the book and your motivation of publishing it?

When I was pregnant with my last two births especially, I spent a lot of time on-line reading birth stories. I liked birth stories that weren’t bogged down in minutiae and were matter-of-fact, I also wanted to read stories that were safe and positive. (When you’re pregnant you have to protect your psyche from fear) so I collected stories that I would have liked to have read and edited, collated, and finally put them into a book. I’ve been in keeping in touch with most of the authors and they’re really great women, the stories are so great.

*This giveaway closed on 30th November 2009.

Due to the fact that Jayden was breech, I was scheduled for a caesarean at 39 weeks. I had the most wonderful birth experience and was back in the room to greet my husband and new baby within a few hours. I was elated, and could not believe this perfect little person was created by us.

After an hour or so back in the room, we tried to breastfeed. Jayden was still so sleepy and didn’t attach or seem at all interested. Fair enough, he was just yanked out of my belly unexpectedly (in his mind) so I thought we’ll give him some time to wake up.

Jayden didn’t wake up properly for a good few days and was quite unsettled as my milk didn’t come in properly until day 5 due to the caesarean. He was very hungry and not getting much at all because he was too tired to feed – what a vicious cycle it was, so hungry because he was too tired to feed, but too tired to feed because he was so hungry. I had the ‘baby blues’ moment early on day 5 when the midwives decided to give him formula with my EBM (what I could get!) – I felt horrible as formula was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. I reluctantly agreed, as I had to look after my little man as he had lost 430g (over 12% of his birth weight) and was getting jaundiced and very unsettled.

I will always remember the moment when I was attached to a double pump at 4am, trying to express what little milk I could get out, whilst feeling like the biggest jersey cow. I watched with tears streaming down my face whilst a midwife (a total stranger, in my eyes!)  was feeding MY baby. Why couldn’t I do that? What made my body so incompetent that I couldn’t do the one thing that nature intended it to do?

The pump must have done its job, as later that morning my milk came in, and I suddenly resembled a Dolly Parton impersonator. Unfortunately, we now had another problem in that because my breasts were so engorged, he couldn’t attach properly. Nevertheless, I continued to try and offer him the breast at regular intervals.

I had a light bulb moment later that day. After seeing how Jayden quickly demolished the bottle of formula, and now that my milk was in, I decided to try expressing again and feeding it to him in a bottle. All the staff were supportive of this idea, so I got pumping – and the liquid gold flowed.

Now came the biggest test – would Jayden drink it? Yes – he would! You have no idea the amount of relief I felt knowing that I COULD feed my baby MY milk – okay, it might be through other means other than my nipples, but he was still going to get all the lovely liquid gold and nutrients that I was producing for him.

So on it went – I expressed every single feed for my 2-3 hourly fed baby for the first 5ish weeks of his life. Looking back now I think how hard it actually was (especially when my poor husband was trying to sleep next to me with the breast pump going!), but at the time it was just something I had to do for Jayden.

I would always offer the breast to Jayden before the EBM, in the hope that he would attach and feed. The day that he actually attached properly, and I saw him happily sucking away was one of the best days of my life. I nearly jumped off the chair – in fact I would have, if he wasn’t still attached!

This could quite easily be the end of my story, happy ending right here. However, we had another spanner thrown in the works when Jayden was about 14 weeks old. One day I woke up – and suddenly had no milk. After having a fabulous supply with fast letdown, it was just suddenly gone. I couldn’t express anything, and Jayden couldn’t get anything out! I tried to keep Jayden on the breast all day to stimulate the supply, but the poor thing was crying, I was crying, it was just a horrible, horrible day.

Thankfully I was able to get to the Doctor who prescribed some Maxalon which worked straight away, and we were back on our breastfeeding journey again. Phew!

Now THIS is the happy ending.

Jayden is now 14 months old – and still breastfeeding. :)

He was exclusively breastfed until just after 6 months old when we started solids, has been demand fed otherwise. He currently feeds morning and night, and during the day 1-2 time before sleeps.

My initial goal was to get to 6 months, then 12 months and now…we’ll see. I am not going to put a timeline on it; I am just going to let our little man decide when he’s had enough.

It could have been so easy to give up, especially when faced with professionals who didn’t see the big deal about offering formula. I am so glad I didn’t though; I love the bond Jayden and I share when he is feeding, it is like our own little special time together.

I am so glad that I persevered and I feel very proud to know that our little man has been given the best start to life that I could possibly provide him with.

When my son was born it was a different story. He was also born early, but he was a bit stronger than my daughter. I pumped for him at first while he was in the hospital, but he didn’t dig the bottle at all.  He wanted the boob and he wanted it CONSTANTLY. He woke up every two hours for a year so that he could nurse. The more he nursed, the more milk I made which meant battling with plugged ducts and cracked nipples.  When my son was 14 months old my husband thought that for our sanity I should wean him. It was no fun at all. When I stopped giving my daughter breast milk all I had to do was put cows milk in the bottle, but with my son weaning meant taking me out of the picture. My son cried for me and I cried because I couldn’t be there with him. My husband had to step in and fill the void by calming him down everytime he woke up during the night. It took my son a month before he stopped waking up to nurse. Now he is two and every once in a while he will still ask to nurse. I don’t know if it was the right thing to wean him when I did, but I am glad that I had the experience of nursing him as well as giving expressed milk to his sister.

After my son was born I had a major bleed and wasn’t able to have the skin to skin contact or baby-led attachment I was hoping for. Instead I had my midwife wake me out of my drugged up, dehydrated dizzy haze and tell me it had been well over an hour since my son was born and we had to attach him. The midwife attached him quite quickly and he fed quite well then slept for nearly 8 hours. 

The next day was beautiful, I was able to attach my son myself and he fed with no troubles. Then we realised during my son’s first bath that he looked quite yellow and after a heel prick we found out my son was quite jaundiced. My son was placed in an isolette under lights, I insisted that he stay in my room even though the blue lights made it very difficult to sleep. The midwives and paediatricians changed us from our relaxed baby-led feeding schedule to regimented 3 hourly feedings and top-ups after each feed. I cried and agonised over the decision to give my son formula top ups but I felt as though I was not given a choice, so my son was force fed a full 40mL of formula after each breast feed. My son kept spitting out formula given to him in a cup so it was given to him in a bottle and I was devastated. Thankfully on the next shift I got a midwife who helped me express so that my son could be topped up with breast milk instead of formula. 

My milk came in the next morning in abundance and expressing and topping my son up with breast milk became easy. Unfortunately we had one feed with very bad attachment and I received deep grazes to both nipples. Breast feeding became agonising and I needed help from a midwife with attachment at each feed. It didn’t help that due to the amount of drugs I had been given during labour and the amount of blood I lost made it difficult to get out of bed or pick up my son, let alone hold him for the 45 minutes it took him to feed. My difficulty with feeding sitting upright meant that I could only last through the feed if I fed lying on my side. This made the grazes worse and it became so agonising to feed that I stopped altogether and began expressing and cup feeding my son to allow the grazes to heal. I powered through for the rest of the day, even expressing was painful. By the evening my son was very unsettled and the midwife told me I would need to nurse him for him to get the comfort he needed. I was very apprehensive but knew that a short period of pain would allow my son to calm down and give me some rest as well. It was still very painful to nurse but I put up with it for the benefit of my son. 

Because of the grazes and being unable to nurse I had lost all confidence in my ability to attach my son effectively. That night my son was running a temperature and was moved to Special Care. I was devastated that I was away from him but this turned out to be a godsend. The Special Care nurses were very experienced in dealing with attachment issues and were able to help me improve my son’s attachment and my confidence. After only 5 hours in Special Care my son’s temperature was down and he was allowed to return to my room out of the isolette and bright lights. Finally I could return to ‘normal’ and that evening I was able to bring my son home.

The next few weeks were like a dream, my son put himself onto a perfect four hour feed/sleep routine and I even began to think parenting would be ‘easy’. I had some trouble attaching my son as his wavy little arms got in the way and often pincer gripped my nipple *ouch*. I had to get my partner to pin his arms down to get him attached properly and when my partner went off to work it took me a lot of time and pain to even get a proper attachment. My son also fed for at least an hour and a half each feed and by the end of a feed he was overtired. If he didn’t fall asleep on the breast or immediately after then he could be very difficult to settle. My son hit the ‘6 week’ growth spurt a little early, coinciding with the first week of hot weather that summer. Suddenly my son wanted to feed every couple of hours, and since it took him an hour and a half to feed he ended up with very little sleep. I ended up dehydrated and my breasts were ‘empty’ so my son could no longer get a proper feed. I pleaded with my son to let me ‘recharge’ but it was my partner who came to the rescue by defrosting some expressed milk and feeding him while I slept. 

My son eventually returned to some sort of pattern but the frequent feeding had increased my milk supply to more than my son could finish. My breasts became engorged and I ended up with blocked ducts in both breasts. Hand expression was not effectively emptying my breasts and the blocked ducts were affecting my milk supply. One of my breasts became red, hot and very painful. I was running a fever and could hardly stay awake. The MCHN over the phone said I most likely had mastitis. I was so tired my partner needed to bring my son to me for feeds and take all the caring. In my desperation I sent my partner to get a small electric breast pump. Pumping was excruciating but within 24 hours of pumping and nursing the blocked ducts relieved and my fever came down. I continued pumping twice a day to prevent the same happening but the pump was damaging my nipples and both pumping and nursing became more and more painful. I remembered that the breast pump of the same brand at the hospital had not been painful so I read the instructions trying to figure out why the pump was hurting me so much. I discovered that the breast shell was too small so my nipple was being pulled into the cylinder which was narrower than my nipple. I promptly ordered a larger breast shell and the pump no longer hurt me, I couldn’t believe it was so simple!  

My son is now 5 months old and nursing beautifully. Despite the challenges I love breastfeeding and wouldn’t give it up for the world. Originally I was wanting to breastfeed for 18 months to 2 years but now I think I will continue breastfeeding for as long as my son wants to continue.