I had been sick for months and putting on weight. I had a thyroid problem, but it was getting worse and I had started to suspect that I had some kind of gut problem, so I went for an ultrasound.

“Oh, you’re pregnant,” said the technician.

“What?” I asked, leaning over to see the monitor, shocked and somehow expecting to see a jelly bean foetus in a blur of undefined body tissue.

“Here,” she said, turning the monitor towards me, “here’s your baby. Did you really not know you were pregnant?”

I couldn’t answer because there was a ribcage on the screen, and it wasn’t mine. I didn’t really have a giant stomach tumour or an immune system disease. I was 28 weeks pregnant. There was a whole baby inside me, well developed enough to survive if it was born that very day.

I don’t need to tell you that I was in a lot of shock for the next few months. I hadn’t planned or intended to have a baby. On the one hand, my fiance and I were planning our wedding, paying our mortgage and in good jobs, so we were in just the right circumstances to have a baby. But on the other hand, I was studying, had travel plans and was on medication for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I stopped taking the Pill (yep, still on it and everything happening as usual) and my antidepressants. By the time I went in to labour, I had all the usual worries and fears of a very pregnant woman as well as increasing anxiety due to the OCD.

At that stage I still hadn’t decided whether I would breastfeed or not. I hadn’t decided anything much! Apart from repainting the spare room (my fiance insisted that if the walls were still magenta, he wasn’t doing any night time nappy changes in there!) and reading as much as I could about childbirth, I hadn’t been able to really face the reality of a baby. I hadn’t even turned up to the breastfeeding antenatal class.

On top of that, I really don’t like my breasts being touched, never mind sucked on and chomped on! But I hadn’t decided to go for bottlefeeding either, because it seemed selfish to me to not even give it a try. I had had 12 weeks of feeling guilty over all the things I had done to my baby already – drank at parties, flown to Seoul to eat street food and hike around the city at -12C, taken my Pill and my antidepressants and stayed out dancing all night. Not to mention not loving my baby or talking to it at all! I felt that I owed it to this baby to make up for six months of unintentional neglect.

I was so proud of myself that I lasted 18 hours into a 24 hour labour before having an epidural, and my little boy was born in the early hours of the 3rd of June. Just like every mother, I promptly went into shock, adrenalin taking the place of exhaustion and I happily let the midwife help my baby attach for the first time. It wasn’t too bad, certainly not yukky like I expected, and I decided that for now, I would try breastfeeding.

Four days later when I left the hospital, Dominic had a name but he still hadn’t had a proper feed. We had tried with every different midwife giving us different advice. I had refused to let him be bottlefed, but had learnt the uncomfortable art of hand expressing so he could be syringe fed some colostrum. I had a little bit of success using a nipple shield, and of course when my Mum came to see us Dominic would attach and drink like a little angel, meaning Mum was reassuring me that he was just fine. The midwives were getting worried because Dominic was sleeping for 7 or 8 hours overnight and not waking up for a feed because he wasn’t getting enough milk to get any energy. So I was pretty stressed by the time I took him home.

Over the next few weeks, my nipples cracked and bled, becoming more and more painful. I was starting to dread every feed, and Dominic still wasn’t getting much milk. We hired an electric pump from the chemist, and it was pretty clear that I was producing hardly any milk. In an hour I could manage perhaps 10mL or 20mL and it was scarcely less painful than feeding him myself.

We had many visits to the local clinic, where the nurses ranged from kind to brilliant, and they were all encouraging, but nobody had the magic solution I was looking for.

Some time in the third week, as I sat on the sofa, both of us crying our eyes out, my wonderful fiance went to the kitchen and made a bottle of formula. Dominic had his first bottle feed with Daddy. I felt a huge pressure had lifted and I realised that if Dominic and I were crying and dreading our feeds, we couldn’t possibly have a good relationship.

So for the next few weeks, I would feed Dominic a bottle whenever my nipples felt too sore to feed comfortably. And a couple of times a week, Daddy would do bottle feeds overnight and give Mummy a rest. My fiance really treasured those times with his little boy, and he delighted in sending me out to do the shopping or visit a friend while ‘the boys’ had ‘boy time’ together.

I was really lucky at this time because my Mum, my sisters-in-law and some of my aunts are very very pro-breastfeeding. They were encouraging me to keep on giving it a go, when I felt I could. My sister-in-law in particular said to me that I should stick to it for six weeks, using formula and expressing to help, but that if I managed six weeks, I could be satisfied that I’d done my best. So I persevered with nipple shields and Lansinoh, and fed Dominic at least a few times every day. During this time I also had Maxolon prescribed by my GP to try and increase my milk supply, which was still very poor.

At the same time, Granny and some other aunts had bottle fed, either from the start or from a few weeks in, and they were quick to point out that there was no shame in deciding not to breastfeed.

I had encouragement from both sides of the bottle/breast divide. And I had it fixed in my mind that if I persisted, even just once a day, until the six week mark, I could then hang up my maternity bras and pat myself on the back.

One evening when Dominic was about four weeks old, I was giving him a pre-bed cuddle when he threw up all over me. Not unusual for Dominic, he was the spewiest baby I’d ever met, but this time it had blood in it. It seemed far too much to be from a cracked nipple, so I shouted for my fiance. We bundled Dominic into the car and rushed off to casualty. Being such a tiny baby, he was attended to instantly, with specialists being hurried out of bed and all the nursing staff fussing over him. It seemed that he had reflux, and that he had thrown up so much that he’d irritated his throat to the point where it was bleeding.

After this drama, as well as combining bottle and breastfeeding, we were now adding reflux medication and formula thickener to our repertoire. That worked straight away, and Dominic’s paediatrician even gave me permission to take my OCD medication while breastfeeding, so ‘anxious cranky Mummy’ and ‘crying spewy baby’ almost overnight became ‘happy Mummy’ and ‘contented baby’.

Suddenly making it to six weeks didn’t seem like such a big trial: I would just keep on rubbing Lansinoh on my nipples, using the nipple shields and topping up with a bottle of thickened formula. I could do this!

Then one day, when he was about six weeks old, Dominic just… latched on! All by himself! No nipple shield, no careful inserting of nipples, no aiming. Within a day I was breastfeeding at every feed, and topping him up with a bit of formula a couple of times a day. Within a week, my nipples were completely recovered and I hardly ever needed any Lansinoh. ‘They’ were right, once breastfeeding worked properly it didn’t hurt at all.

We continued with mainly breastfeeding and a little bit of bottlefeeding until Dominic was six months old. Doing both meant that I could go out to a party and leave Dominic with his Daddy or his grandparents for a few hours. I would still be home within a few hours because my breasts would be huge and leaking everywhere, but at least I knew that if he was hungry, Dominic could have a bottle. On the other hand, breastfeeding is so much more convenient out and about. I could just find a comfy spot and breastfeed any time Dominic was hungry or stressed, and stay out as long as I wanted without worrying about running out of bottles.

I was due to go back to work at the start of January so I started to offer him a bottle for his feeds during work hours, followed by a breastfeed top up, so that hopefully when I was due to go to work I could send him to daycare with bottles of formula. My Mum was very positive about managing part-time breastfeeding as she continued with morning and night feeds for some months when weaning my sister and I. But Dominic had other ideas. Over the course of a week he completely dropped the breastfeeds and had his last breastfeed on Christmas Day. It wasn’t our best feed. I was engorged and a bit sore, and spent ten minutes persuading him to suck just a little bit so I could relax and enjoy Christmas lunch!

At first, we continued to cuddle Dominic during his bottle feeds so that he did not miss out on the closeness he had experienced with breastfeeding. But he decided very quickly that he prefered to lie on his wedge pillow and hold his own bottle, in fact he insisted on it! So these days we sit with him and read a story instead. At ten months, he is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted baby. And as they say, you can’t tell whether he was breast or bottlefed – just that he is well-loved!

I’m really proud of myself for sticking with the breastfeeding for six months. I feel like I gave Dominic the best possible start in life. I managed to balance the nutritional benefits of breastmilk with the benefits of having a calm, relaxed Mum at mealtimes. When Dominic was born, I felt I’d had very little choice, and therefore very little control, about having a baby. With the support and encouragement of my friends, family and clinic nurses, I felt in control of my body and chose to stop breastfeeding when it hurt too much, and persist again when I felt ready to, while still giving my baby the best care possible.

The biggest barrier I faced was the idea that breastfeeding is ‘all or nothing’. That might be true for some, but it doesn’t have to be. If you are finding breastfeeding a struggle you often receive advice that points you to either breastfeed in agony or bottle feed exclusively. You don’t have to do that. You can mix and match, try different things, and work out your own perfect balance.

Here is a list of things we tried, which all more or less worked (and were undertaken with the supervision of a paediatrician):

* Breastfeeding
* Breastfeeding with a nipple shield
* Hand expressing
* Pump expressing
* Using Maxolon to help produce more milk
* Lanolin for cracked nipples
* Bottlefeeding expressed breast milk
* Bottlefeeding formula
* Thickening formula to reduce reflux
* Using a dummy
* Breastfeeding, with a top up of thickened formula at each feed
* Breastfeeding, and topping up once or twice a day with formula
* Having Daddy, grandparents, godparents and family do bottlefeeds
* Dreamfeeds, where you feed the baby right before you go to bed to increase your chance of a longer sleep
* Bottle handles, because Dominic insists on holding his own bottles
* A kidney shaped pillow to breastfeed on
* A wedge pillow to bottlefeed on (once Dominic decided cuddles were not happening during feeds)
* A variety of bottle and teat styles, and now a variety of sippy cups, straw cups, pop-top drink bottles, regular cups etc. In short, Dominic will take the food however it is dispensed!
* Early start on solids (Farex) to help with reflux, while continuing to breastfeed.
* Cabbage leaves while I was weaning
* Hand expressing while I was weaning
* Pleading with Dominic to please have a little bit of a drink so Mummy was less sore (didn’t work terribly well, but I gave it a try!)
* Your obstetrician and psychiatrist will probably defer backwards and forwards to each other, neither wanting to say that it’s ok or not ok to take your medication while pregnant. Get in touch with a paediatrician as soon as you can, and talk to them about it.
* For any OCD mummies out there, start out by not caring which breast the baby drank from last. It’s only going to end in tears because one night you WILL be too tired to remember and you don’t want to get yourself in a state over it! I’m not a ‘germ phobe’, I’m a counter and a worrier, so I haven’t had as many problems as I expected.
* If you have a mental illness, be extra aware of the possibility of postnatal depression. You probably already have a support network set up. Tell all the midwives and nurses about your mental illness and how it might affect you as a parent. I did, and got lots of extra help in the hospital and at the clinic.
* Only listen to family, friends, midwives, nurses and doctors who said things we liked and encouraged us to find the best solution to our feeding problems without pressuring us.

Once my son was born, the midwife tried to latch him on the breast for his first feed and he did not co-operate. Being a first time mother, I just went with what she was doing and tried to help where possible. She ended up hand expressing some colostrum and syringed it up and fed my son that way. Afterward I showered and could hear him crying his new little lungs out so when I was finished I came out and attempted a feed all on my own. Well he latched on instantly and fed for about 10 minutes and was soon satisfied and sleepy.

The next few days I had some trouble getting a good latch, mostly on my right breast. At times he would seem to be on well, but then I would feel pain and my nipple would not be the optimal shape. Midwife after midwife would hand express and syringe, causing agony and cracked nipples (coupled with the bad latching) and every feed became a toe curling, breath holding, painful experience. I tried numerous styles of holds and would have to latch on and take off, latch on and take off over and over to try and get a good latch. Once I was home I had a home visit from a midwife who looked him over. Almost instantly she recognised he had tongue tie. I was so surprised that nobody had picked it up yet! He had the typical signs, heart shaped tongue whilst crying and bad latching even though he had a strong suck. We booked in for the following week to have it cut (after careful consideration… tongue tie may affect not only breastfeeding, but speech development later.) We were able to get in when he was 2 weeks old which meant it was a matter of putting a numbing gel on the frenulum and snipping it back with scissors. It was very hard to see it happen and know he was in pain but it was over quickly, hardly any blood and he only cried for a couple of minutes.

We had some improvement after that but the pain and cracked nipples continued. He would have blood in his spew from my nipples and I reached a point where the pain was getting all too much. Now I had begun our breastfeeding journey, however, I could not bring myself to give him a bottle. I considered nipple shields but worried that would start breast refusal because it was so much easier. I visited my local health nurse and she watched us feed and gave us some pointers. He was now getting a perfect latch but I was not holding him tight enough and because his tongue was short it was easy to slip off the nipple. That combined with a very strong suck meant he was often slipping back and only getting the nipple in his mouth but would continue to suck like mad so it was causing a lot of damage. I started to put a big pillow under him and held his neck the entire feed and things slowly improved. My nipples healed and feeds got much easier and more enjoyable.

We went through a few patches of oral and nipple thrush which again was quite painful but after what we persevered through in the beginning, nothing was going to slow us down! At 10 months I discovered I was expecting our second baby but decided to continue to breastfeed as long as he would take it. I did however start offering some formula during the day time to help with morning sickness and tiredness. At about 11 ½ months, the morning sickness was getting all too much and I had 2 separate bleeds in the space of 2 weeks. I decided it was time to stop breastfeeding. So when he hit 12 months I stopped the morning feed and replaced his night feed with cows milk. He didn’t complain and didn’t even ask for the boob so I was confident that the decision was a good one. Not having to worry about the morning feed anymore meant that I could get up and be sick without worrying about him crying for the boob lol.

In hindsight I wish our journey could have been longer, but I am also very happy to have reached 12 months. I am now 8 months into my breastfeeding journey with my daughter and have no plans of stopping or slowing (or any babies for a while) so hopefully this time we will be continuing until my daughter decides she has had enough. We have not had any issues this time around other than thrush thankfully. I can see why so many women give up on breastfeeding in the early days, it would have been an easy and (physically) painless solution but I am so glad I stuck it out, it took many tears but it was worth it.

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.

Nathaniel arrived 9 months later and was an eating champ from the first moment!  My supply seemed a little lacking, but Nathaniel was eating all the time!  He never complained like he was actually lacking anything!  I was able to nurse him until he was 9 months old when his interest dropped some and I found out Baby #3 was on the way.

I’m looking forward to nursing another baby!  What a joy to know that I can help provide for my kids in such a small way!