In January of 1995 I underwent a breast reduction surgery taking me from a DD down to a small B. My surgeon told me that he would make every effort to preserve nerves and tissues that would still enable me to breastfeed in the future, but that there was a possibility that I would not be able to nurse future babies. At 19 I was not thinking about the future and really didn’t think it was a big deal either way. I just wanted the reduction to look good, and it did.

When I had Jasper in 1999, I did produce milk. He was a very healthy baby and avid nurser. My nipples cracked and bled. I cried every time I tried to nurse him. I knew I had milk but had no idea how to nurse him. I was in the Navy living in IL and had not read any breastfeeding books and didn’t seek out resources to help. I figured it would come naturally. I blamed my surgery for changing the shape of my nipples, causing an unnatural latch and thus the pain. I gave up after about two weeks and encouragement from my husband (at the time) to just give him some of the formula the hospital had sent home with us. Watching him gulp down the formula I was sure I had been starving the poor little guy for several weeks.

In 2000 I was pregnant again with Julia. I had picked up a copy of Spiritual Midwifery and was now very interested in natural birth and childrearing. I wanted to try breastfeeding again. I regretted not trying harder with Jasper and visited a lactation consultant. She assured me that there was nothing wrong with my breasts. She said that there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t breastfeed Julia when she was born.

Julia was born early as a result of an induction because of a premature rupture of my membranes. I fed her breastmilk from a spoon for a few days because she was so sleepy. My lactation consultant visited me during labor and right afterwards as well, encouraging me to tell the hospital staff I would be using kangaroo care rather than letting them keep her in the nursey. Together we couldn’t get Julia to latch. I was scared of hurting her.

After about three days in the hospital, a pushy RN told me I needed to get Julia to latch or they were going to give her formula. I was upset and said I didn’t know what else to do. She grabbed my left breast in her hand and pushed the babies mouth wide, and shoved us together. Julia latched and that was that. I couldn’t believe it. I am thankful to her to this day for her help. So I was breastfeeding, but then within a few days I had sore and scabbed nipples again. I visited the lactation consultant yet again. She checked Julia’s latch etc. which was fine. I suffered through it for a few more weeks.

Then we got thrush (probably from the antibiotics given to me during my labor with Julia to combat the GBS that I most likely didn’t have). Scabbed nipples plus yeast! Ick. It was misery. Still I tried to stick with it, and around 6 weeks, Julia started crying with intensity every evening. She would cry and I would cry too. My husband gave her a bottle of formula (again, sent from the hospital). I felt like a lousy mother. Here I was, intersted in midwifery and homebirth and all of this natural stuff, and I couldn’t even figure out how to breastfeed without bawling every time I did it.

Several months later I was diagnosed with post partum depression. I started taking medication which helped tremendously but breastfeeding was finished. I continued my studies of midwifery as a hobby, but my own self doubt left me thinking that I might not make a very good midwife. I didn’t have faith in my own body. How could I realistically expect to identify with other women, and encourage them to have faith in theirs? I don’t think that every midwife has to have had a homebirth, or breastfed or even have given birth at all to be a good midwife. But for ME to be a good midwife, I felt I would need to experience all of those things for myself.

Emma came along just three months ago, in 2009. I took a different path with my pregnancy and birth this time. I hired a midwife. I forced my husband to watch The Business of Being Born. I took my prenatal care into my own hands, eating carefully and faithfully taking herbal supplements four times a day to prevent GBS and to strengthen my membranes to prevent the premature rupture I had experienced in two of my pregnancies. I meditated and talked to my unborn baby about how to be born. I read and re-read several great breastfeeding books.I read every article on kellymom.com. I also joined breastfeeding support forums on babycenter.com, which really showed me how incredibly commom sore and cracked nipples are and started thinking that maybe I was just one of those people, that for whatever reason, just get sore and cracked nipples. It didn’t mean I was doing anything wrong. It didn’t mean that I had a bad latch or that that I was holding the baby wrong. It didn’t mean that I was a bad mom who couldn’t figure out how to do something that society tells us should come naturally. It just meant that I get really sore from breastfeeding 20 hours a day, and that was it.

So when Emma was born, I stuck her on the boob and that is where she stayed. I cried, I broke down and sobbed as she nursed! I had prepared my husband for the things I would say. I told him that the word “formula” was NOT to be uttered around me. I nearly gave up. I got mastitis. I was miserable. I was raw and exhausted. A girlfriend came to visit and realized how much pain I was having, and the next day (Thanksgiving Day!) dropped off a coulple of silicone nipple shields. Sweet relief! Why had I never tried these before? The lactation consultants and books I had read said these were a big no-no. But I figured better use them, and at least try to see if they would help, than quit again. I had been afraid of using them, but they saved me. I used one on my sorest nipple for a few days, and then weaned myself down to a few times a day, then only at night…until I didn’t need them at all.

Now, thirteen weeks later, we are going strong and I can finally say that I LOVE breastfeeding. There isn’t anything wrong my body. It took me seventeen years to figure that out, but better late than never.

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.

Going into breastfeeding with an “I WILL” attitude instead of “If it works” made a huge difference for me.  When my daughter Lily was born in November of 2002, the I WILL attitude was the only thing that kept me going.

First, I had a regular OB/GYN (with my second, I switched to a midwifery practice).  She never noticed that I had flat nipples,  let alone checking me specifically for them or asking me about my plans to breastfeed.  If I had known, I could have been wearing shells before I went into labor.  

I had a fairly uncomplicated birth and within 30 minutes I had Lily on the breast.  It didn’t feel “right” but I had no idea what “right” was.  By my second day in the hospital, I had a blister to the left of my nipple and my daughter seemed very hungry and very cranky.  The hospital lactation consultant came in, immediately noticed my flat nipple, and gave me a set of shields to wear while nursing.  

She neglected to mention that when using shields, you should also pump after the nursing because your milk production will drop if you don’t.  I went home and continued to nurse by using the shields but Lily was not gaining weight and wasn’t getting enough to eat, and my milk production was way down.  

A friend recommended an excellent lactation consultant and she single-handedly saved me.  First, she informed me that if you wear shields, you need to pump after on each breast to ensure your milk production stays up.  Second, she helped me figure out the best hold for my short-waisted, large-breasted body.  Thirdly, she realized that because Lily hadn’t been getting much milk out of me, I was going to have to retrain her how to latch on.  

I went home feeling like I had a chance.  Sleep-deprived and incredibly sore, I spent the next two weeks nursing every 2 ½ hours and pumping after for another 15-30 minutes.  This gave me about an hour between feedings to rest after getting everything else done. My husband was a trooper and  often stayed up with me at night just to give me support.  I remember sitting in Lily’s room bawling my eyes out because I was just so tired and so frustrated.  I wanted it to be easy. I wanted to zone out like some of the other mothers I saw at LLL meetings – blissed out breastfeeding, I called it.  I wanted what they had. Instead I had aching breasts, the sound of the pump literally made me break out in a cold sweat, and I was wondering when I would be able to sleep more than 2 hours at a stretch.  

After getting mastitis and nursing through that, I was truly ready to rip my hair out.  It was now three months since Lily had been born, and I was still having to wear shields and pump.  Lily just wouldn’t latch on without the shield.  My lactation consultant told me to keep at it, and I did, and magically around month 4 she learned, and so did I!  It took some wrangling with my nipple and her bottom lip and chin, but those first few times where she latched on without shields, drained my breast, and fell into what we affectionately called the “milk coma”, well – it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  After natural childbirth, I felt like superwoman.  Overcoming my breastfeeding obstacles made me feel like I could conquer the world.  

The advice I always give to any woman about to become a breastfeeding mother is to commit to the idea of it.  Then I tell them to keep a lactation consultant’s number handy, and not to be afraid to call at the first sign of trouble.  I was lucky – another day without her help would have landed Lily in the doctor’s office, dehydrated and probably would have resulted in a formula-fed baby.

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.

Hamish was born after a long, 38 hour labour that ended in and emergency C section and a hemorrhage on the table.

Over the first two days in hospital I actually thought breastfeeding was going okay.  By the third day it became apparent that his attachment was not right. He was going yellow from Jaundice and my nipples were super sore and sensitive. The pain was unbearable every time he sucked. Numerous midwives and LC’s tried to help but every time he went on, no matter what position he was in, even when it looked like it was right, it was complete and utter agony! Eventually a nurse had me express so that he could get some fluid, the unusual thing was even on the pump it was agonising. There was clearly no friction on the  nipple, yet the pain was awful. She told me that it must be my nipple tendons stretching out, as I have very flat nipples.

So with this in mind I kept feeding him through the pain, thinking that he must have been on correctly even when it was hurting. I was sent home from hospital everyone thinking we were fine. We weren’t fine at all and I was becoming more and more emotional as the pain continued. I couldn’t stop crying and I was so worried that everyone would think I had postnatal depression, I felt like a complete failure and started to feel like I didn’t really want to be a Mum at all and that I had made a huge mistake.

After only 2 days at home my nipples had scabbed over so badly that they were completely hard and brown. I couldn’t handle him sucking any more and I moved him on to expressed milk in a bottle. This to me felt like I had descended into the depths and couldn’t believe that I was unable to make it work. I was unable to express without blood coming out of my nipples, mmmm, pink milk! I remember one day when I had the nurse visit she convinced me to have a go at feeding him again. Poor little fella was so confused about being constantly taken on and off that he would scream and scream and the next time he came off so did the scab and I could see it sitting on the back of his tongue as he wailed with his mouth wide open before he swallowed it. I just wanted to curl up, put the pause button on and sleep for a few weeks, then press play and start again.

So we continued to express and bottle feed. The scabs healed fairly quickly but the pain I was still feeling was terrible. No one could tell me why, until one day my lactation consultant asked me if I had any spasms in my nipples? I said no, not really understanding what she meant by spasm. I felt periods of intense pain between feed but didn’t know this is what she meant. Anyway so she then said “oh it’s just that there is this thing called Nipple Vasospasm where your nipples go white and you have these spasms which can be very painful”. The bells started ringing and I explained to her that I did get this blanching of the nipple and had done all through my pregnancy. In fact my nipples had always been very sensitive.

Nipple Vasospasm is the same thing as Raynaud’s Phenomenon, which is when the blood vessels constrict, which can cause a lot of pain. People often have this in their fingers and toes when it is cold. I myself have it in my toes and as it is hereditary most of my family have it also. Unfortunately I get it in the nipple as well. So this explains the pain. The poor attachment is then caused by the fact that I could not tell if he was on correctly. It hurt either way. Sometimes I would pull him off thinking he was on wrong and my nipple would be a beautiful shape, other times I would think I was only feeling the pain from the spasm and he would be totally mincing me up!

I tried all of the recommended supplements and techniques that are supposed to help and  was even prescribed medication. Nothing put a dent in the pain. Sadly I continued to express and bottle feed, every week thinking it would start to ease. After 10 weeks of this I had all but given up. I purchased a double electric pump, which cut my expressing time down by almost two thirds and formulated my plan.

In order to keep going I decided that I had to have an end in sight. I decided that if I could express full time for 6 months and store any extra I could get out in a deep freeze, then after 6 months I would introduce a formula feed at night. I would continue to express as much milk as I could and then hoped that by about 10 months old I would have enough stored milk to feed him through he was 12 months old. This plan made me feel as though I had some kind of control over the situation and made it easier to deal with. Luckily I had no problems with milk supply and it simply pored from me. My stores started to mount up and I felt for the first time a sense of success over the breastfeeding process.

When Hamish was about 3 months old he started to sleep very badly. I became more and more tired, stressed and run down. It was then that I began to have problems with blocked ducts and an oversupply of milk. Nearly every single feed there would be blockages. Some would come loose at the next expressing session and others would stay put for days. The pain was great and I began to feel very sad that I was hating the whole process again. From time to time I would still try and give Hamish a feed. He was a good boy and would usually oblige. Often he was able to loosen a blockage that the pump could not and my beautiful husband and I gave him the name, ‘The Lumpinator’! No matter what I did I was not able to feed in any ongoing way. I tried to feed him once a day every day but this rarely worked for more than 2 days in a row and frequently there were weeks and weeks between him feeding from me.

For some reason my boobies just had no system to the amount of milk they would make. It seemed that the more tired I was the more milk they would make. The lumps and blockages were continuous and very painful. When he was about 5 and a half months old I came down with my first bout of Mastitis which saw me in hospital for 2 nights on intravenous antibiotics. After this episode the incidence of blocked ducts was reduced by quite a lot and I wonder if I had a very low grade infection that whole time? A few weeks after that, for some reason, my Vasospasms started to become slightly more mild. I was able to feed Hamish once a day every day for a couple of weeks. I was so happy and from then on I slowly introduced more and more feeds. Over the next 3 months I increased his breastfeeds till I was only expressing last thing at night and first thing in the morning. I can’t tell you how much this improved my life. I wasn’t tied to home every few hours in order to express and I was feeling like a real breastfeeding Mother. I think the act of Breastfeeding was a huge part of what I thought being a Mum was.

Since Hamish was 9 months old, I have been feeding him all on my own. He is 14 months old now and I can’t tell you how happy I am. I have had 2 more bouts of mastitis but nowhere near as serious and only several blockages. I still have the Nipple Vasospasm but it is so much more bearable than it used to be. I still experience pain when I am feeding him but the spasms between feeds are so much less and over all I am able to do it with very few problems. During all of my problems I felt very helpless, I had much support from my partner, Mum and friends but deep down I really felt a failure. Now that I have some hindsight I see that what I did was a really good thing for Hamish and I am so proud of myself. There were many times that I wanted to give up but I am glad that I was determined and continued to success. I am also thankful and proud of my little boy who was always so flexible, swapping from bottle to boob and back again, and who will now not even take a bottle.