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.

My gorgeous wee man was born at 37 weeks exactly. His suck was excellent despite being early and we tried to feed straight away. During the first few days I had a lot of difficulty latching him and blisters and sores started appearing on my nipples. I was sure this wasn’t right and asked for some help, but everyone said I was doing fine and to continue.

We went home from hospital to have him taking up to 30 minutes to latch at most feeds, him screaming, me with tears running down my face. The pain became more and more at each feed. On about the 7th day I rang my midwife because I just couldn’t do it anymore. She advised me to express to give my nipples a break, so we began expressing all feeds and bottle feeding EBM.

By the next morning (I think) I was shaking all over and nearly collapsed on the floor. Beginning of mastitis bout, number one. This was horrid. I couldn’t do anything apart from sit up in bed to express and eat and drink a bit. Thanks to my mum and husband who were there to bottle feed the expressed milk. I got better, but my nipples were still red raw and there was no way I could latch. So I expressed day and night for another week then began to try relatching him.

This was excruciating! Eventually I managed to get him latched with nipple shields. We both gradually managed to get into a rhythm with feeds and make some progress. He took over an hour to feed each time and it felt like I was doing nothing else!

Now, the pain was still excruciating over this whole time! At every feed it felt like needles and glass were cutting my whole breast throughout the feed. After the feed it felt like acid had been poured on my nipples and I would have severe shooting pains through my breast for hours. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep! The pain was so bad I couldn’t wear clothing! So I was essentially at home the whole time. I think I bought every single breastfeeding product I could find (shells, shields, creams, pumps etc).

I then managed to get another 2 episodes of mastitis. More pain, more antibiotics. We were still using the nipple shields. But at least I was still feeding!

It took weeks to convince people this pain was not normal. I had been told to just get on with it and it couldn’t possibly hurt that much. FINALLY a lactation consultant suggested I may have thrush.  The thrush took over 6 weeks to cure. I had creams, then weeks of nystatin tablets, nothing worked. I finally got prescribed fluconazole tablets and my pain started to subside.

I finally got all the infections sorted enough to brave weaning from the nipple shields. It took another few weeks of gentle coaxing, tricking, encouraging, along with screaming and tears to teach my baby what that nipple felt like again!

By 12 weeks we were finally managing to feed without nipple shields and with much less pain!!

Then came the saga of an unhappy baby with blood in his poo!! It eventuated he was intolerant to cows milk and I then had to go onto a dairy-free diet. That lasted until he was over one! By about 14 months I could eat small amounts of dairy but he could still only tolerate breast milk. Thank goodness I had managed to feed him!

Anyway, here we are now, coming up to 21 months old. We are still breastfeeding.  My wee guy loves his “milkas” and this mummy feels like she has managed one of the best, but hardest accomplishments in her life!! I love the moments we have together feeding and the wee smiles and giggles looking back up at me! Oh yeah, and we have been pain free for more than a year.

I was having ultrasounds twice weekly because the doctors were very worried about twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a dangerous complication that happens sometimes with identical twins.  I drove to one of my Thursday ultrasounds, thinking that it would be more of the same: they are still different in size and very small, so you should lay around and do nothing all day.  Instead, they took a very long time to do the ultrasound, and when the doctor came in afterwards to give me the report, the first thing he said was, “So we have you scheduled for a c-section at 7:30 tomorrow morning.”  I was shocked!  I was only 35 weeks pregnant, and not feeling ready for the twins to be born.  But they had measured the blood flow from the placenta, and felt that Baby B, the smaller twin, was not getting enough oxygen and nutrients.  So it was time for them to come out.  Both babies were breech, and the doctors refused to allow me to even attempt a vaginal birth.  They told me that at 35 weeks, the babies should be healthy enough to come  home within a few days, and that “they might have to spend a day or two in the NICU, but it’s no big deal.”  I can’t believe they told me that!  And I can’t believe I bought it!

So the next morning, Jonah and Owen were born by C-section at 8:17 and 8:18 in the morning.  They were not breathing very well, so the nurses whisked them off to the NICU with nothing more than a quick wave to me.  My husband went off with them, and I was sent up to recovery.  It was so strange to be in the labor and delivery ward of the hospital with no babies.  I could hear babies crying in neighboring rooms, and I ached to be holding my two little ones.  When I went to see them in the NICU, they had their faces covered (for minimal stimulation), and were positively covered in wires and tubes and monitors.  We were not allowed to touch them or even talk to them above a whisper that first day, and the news just kept getting worse and worse.  I will never forget the moment when the doctor said to me about Owen, “Well, we don’t have many more tricks up our sleeve.  If he doesn’t respond to the Nitric, we’re going to have to call Boston.”  Both babies had severe respiratory distress syndrome, and they didn’t respond to hardly any of the treatments for the first 24 hours.

Meanwhile, I was pumping and trying to build my supply so that I could nurse them when they were strong enough.  At first, we were adamant that they not have pacifiers or bottles, but when the nurses said that bottle-fed babies go home sooner, I gave in.  It was two days before they even were able to have the first drops of colostrum swabbed on their gums.  Slowly, they started to be able to take little bits of my milk from a bottle nipple, once they were off the ventilators.  It was five days before we got to hold Jonah, the stronger of the two.  I kept asking when I could nurse them, but the nurses told me that it would make their oxygen levels drop, and they had to be on a certain type of ventilator, and all kinds of other excuses. 

I had plenty of milk, and I was pumping every 3 hours around the clock to build a supply for my little guys.  The hospital finally told me to store it at home in our freezer because theirs was full! 

But we still weren’t nursing.  Jonah was in the hospital for 2 weeks, and I nursed him 3 times before he came home.  Owen was in for 3 weeks, and I only nursed him once while he was there.   Once Jonah came home, we worked really hard to get him latched on and nursing.  He was getting stronger every day, but it was so hard to nurse him (he would nurse for an hour every feeding), then offer him a bottle of milk so that we could be sure he was getting enough, then pump so we would have milk to offer.  And I tried to go to the hospital every day to visit Owen, who was still there.  It was insanity! 

And it only got crazier when Owen finally came home.  We nursed every single feeding because I was so determined to get them on the breast.  And it was the same routine: nurse, bottle, pump.  All day and all night.  Owen had to have some special high-calorie formula that we mixed with breastmilk instead of water, because he wasn’t gaining weight very well. 

And when Owen came home, I started having excruciating nipple pain.  It felt like broken glass was coming out of my breasts at every feeding.  My husband would come home and find me nursing the boys and sobbing.  I started taking painkillers just to be able to feed them, because I refused to switch to formula.  Our doula told us that it was almost definitely thrush, so I went and got checked out by my doctor.  She told me that the boys’ latch looked good, and it probably was thrush, but she wouldn’t treat me unless their pediatrician also treated them.  Their pediatrician then told me that he wouldn’t treat them unless I was also being treated.  It took me three days to finally convince them that someone had to write the prescription first.  And so we all took nystatin, which did nothing for two weeks.   Then, my doctor switched me to Diflucan, and we used gentian violet along with it.  And, even though everything in our house was purple for a week from the gentian violet, it worked! 

We had four glorious, pain-free days of nursing before the pain returned.  And so I went nuts.  I read everything I could get my hands on about yeast.  I became the Hygiene Nazi, treating everything that touched breastmilk as though it were toxic waste.  We put vinegar on everything, and used grapefruit seed extract and gentian violet, and many courses of Diflucan.  Nothing worked. 

So I was in immense pain all the time, but we finally did get the boys solely on the breast, with no bottles at all.  What a triumph!  I wish I remembered more of it, but I spent so much time in a haze of pain that it all seems like such a blur to me.

Finally, six weeks after the pain returned, a lactation consultant at the support group I was going to said, “maybe it’s not yeast.”  The thought had never occurred to me (or, apparently, to my doctor).  So I went to the doctor and insisted that she culture my breastmilk, although she didn’t think it was necessary.  It’s a good thing we did, because it turned out that I didn’t have yeast at all; instead, I had a raging staph infection in my nipples. 

She put me on dicloxacillin, which didn’t make me feel better and gave me an allergic reaction.  When I told the doctor that I was still having pain, she told me she was just going to prescribe another course of Diflucan, because it was probably just yeast from the antibiotics.  I would not take any more meds without being cultured, so I insisted that they wait and do another culture.  And it’s a good thing, because it turned out that the staph was MRSA, a medicine-resistant form of staph. 

The doctor put me on Levaquin, another antibiotic that the culture indicated would work, but told me that I couldn’t nurse while I was on it.  And then told me that I could.  I asked our pediatrician who told me it was fine, and then another doctor in his practice said it was absolutely not.  I kept asking doctors, and kept getting conflicting answers.  Finally, I decided that I wouldn’t risk the health of my two boys who had already been so sick, and I decided that I would formula feed them for the fourteen days while I was medicated, and just pump.  I had to go stay with my parents so that they could help with the logistics of managing and feeding two babies and pumping.  After 24 hours of having the boys reject the bottles and then, finally, gulp down the formula and spit it all back up, I decided that I couldn’t do it.  I did a lot more research, and found some information saying that it was probably all right for me to nurse while I was on the Levaquin.  I still was wary of it, so I decided to nurse every other feeding, so at least they would still get the benefits of breastmilk, and any harmful effects from the medicine would be limited.  It was a disaster.  They had a lot of trouble keeping the formula down, and my supply dropped because the pump was not getting as much as the babies normally did. 

But the medicine was working!  By the end of the fourteen-day course, I was pain-free again.  And once I was done with it, I started nursing the boys for every feeding again, and trying desperately to build my milk supply back up. 

Unfortunately, the pain came back after only four days.  I had another two cultures done, because I wanted to make sure we were treating the right problem.  I was afraid that we had yeast again from the antibiotics.  But both cultures came back negative.  I was at my wits’ end.  I couldn’t understand why I was still in so much pain.  I went to my doctor, who told me that she just couldn’t understand it either.  She said that our latch looked good, so I probably just needed some time to heal up.  She told me to pump and bottle feed the boys for a week to let myself heal.  “No nursing for at least a week!”, she told me.  This didn’t sound quite right to me, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I tried it.  Again, it was a disaster.  My breasts no longer would let down for the pump.  I would pump for 20 minutes and get only an ounce of milk.  Needless to say, my supply plummeted.  We had to supplement the boys with formula, which they again had trouble keeping down.  I went against my doctor’s advice and nursed them once a day, in the evening, just to make sure they would go back to the breast after a week. 

After 4 days, they rejected the breast completely.  Every time I tried to nurse them, they would scream as if they were being terribly hurt.  It was horrible.  They had decided that the bottle was much easier, and they didn’t want to nurse anymore.  I stopped all bottles immediately, and we cup-fed them to make sure they were getting enough to eat.  They still refused the breast, and cried all day and all night.

I was completely at the end of my rope.  Friends and family were telling me to just give up and switch to formula, but I felt like I didn’t know how to be a mom without nursing.  It was so important to me, and I felt like Jonah and Owen really needed it, that I refused to quit.  I cried and cried and spent hours and hours researching on the internet.  Finally, even though we didn’t have the money, I bit the bullet and paid for a private lactation consultant to come out to the house and consult with us. 

She will forever be an angel in my mind.  In the space of about 15 minutes, she had diagnosed and then fixed our latch problem.  I felt so foolish that I had been ‘doing it wrong’ for four months!  As for the nipple confusion, she said to just keep doing what we were doing, and that now that they had a better latch, it would be easier for them to get milk from the breast.  Within a few days, my supply was back up, the boys were nursing like pros, and I was pain-free!  I can’t believe it was so easy after all that pain.  I had been told by two other lactation consultants, my doctor, and the boys’ pediatrician that our latch was very good. 

It was beautiful to nurse without having it make my toes curl in pain!  I was thrilled, but the boys were not happy babies.  They were covered in rashes, and spitting up constantly, and too uncomfortable to sleep, ever.  We were all exhausted, and I did more research.  Although my doctor told me that what I ate wouldn’t affect the boys, I thought that something I ate might be bothering them.  I cut dairy out of my diet for two weeks, and they got much better, and then worse again.  I decided to do the Dr. Sears total elimination diet.

So for two weeks, I ate nothing but rice, millet, summer squash, turkey, sweet potatoes, and pears.  I was ridiculously hungry and lost a twenty pounds, but it helped a lot.  The boys’ rashes disappeared, they stopped spitting up entirely, and they started sleeping longer stretches at night.  They seemed much happier. 

After a couple of months, we figured out that they were reacting to dairy and soy in my diet, which explains why they always had so much trouble with the cows’ milk formula. So now I eat anything but dairy and soy. Now that the boys are a year old, I am able to eat a little bit of cheese once in a while.

One day, when the boys were 7 months old, I noticed that my nipples were getting sore again.  We had started nursing in some new positions, so I just monitored their latches closely, hoping it would go away.  It didn’t, and one day I woke up to find that one of my breasts was red and hot.  I had had this for months before, and I figured it would go away, but later that day I started to feel hot and really tired.  Before long, I had chills and was in really bad shape.  I figured out that I had mastitis, and was put on antibiotics.  Within a day, I was feeling better and I thought that was the end of it.  Unfortunately, I had it again as soon as the antibiotics ran out.  The same thing happened twice more, and I ended up with three courses of antibiotics within 8 weeks.  I was sick from the antibiotics and worried about taking to many meds, especially because I was also on Diflucan so that I wouldn’t get thrush from all of the antibiotics.  The fourth time that I woke up with a red breast, I decided to give it 24 hours and see what happened, as long as I didn’t get a fever.  I kept a heat pad on my breast all day and after every feeding I swabbed my nipple with grapefruit seed extract, let it dry, and applied Bactrim and a clean nursing pad.  After 24 hours, the inflammation was gone!  

Still, five months later, this happens about once a week, but it always goes away with heat and super hygiene.  I had given up on it until recently, when a friend sent me a video about something called inflammatory breast cancer.  I was scared into getting some answers, and will be seeing a breast health specialist this month and getting a mammogram and an ultrasound.  So far, no one has been able to give me any answers, but I’m hopeful that we will figure this out.

Our nursing relationship has been worth every bit of trouble.  It has been amazing to watch my boys grow from two tiny, sick, skinny babies into happy, healthy, chubby mama’s boys.  They will be a year old this month, and they are complete milk monsters.  Their first baby sign was the sign for milk.  They don’t even know what to do with a bottle.  Aside from the disastrous (and, thankfully, occasional) formula, they were exclusively breastfed for 7 months, when they started solid foods. 

I think we have made it this far on sheer determination, but I hope the next year will be easier; my initial goal was a year of nursing, but now I think we’ll do two!

So back to me. During my pregnancy my mother was determined to educate me about the benefits of breastfeeding.  As well as talking to me about her own experiences she strongly encouraged (nagged) me to join a volunteer-run breastfeeding association because it had given her much-needed support when she was breastfeeding my sister.  I eventually joined up and went to a few meetings and a breastfeeding education class while I was pregnant, and even though I had a good idea that it may not be easy to start with, by the time my little boy was born I was determined to breastfeed him.

In the beginning I was totally unco-ordinated, my nipples were sore, and when my milk came in I was hugely and painfully engorged with a ridiculously strong letdown. If I didn’t have my baby positioned right milk would flow out his nose, or if he pulled off spluttering, milk would squirt across the room.  I had so much milk.  I soaked through breast pads constantly, and had to wear them until he was 6 months old to stop myself from being embarrassingly wet-fronted.

Despite my initial extreme engorgement I didn’t develop mastitis… until he was 5 months old when I noticed a hot, red patch on one of my breasts and I felt sick and feverish.   I went to the doctor and he diagnosed mastitis, prescribing a course of antibiotics, which cleared up the mastitis beautifully, or so I thought.  A few days after I finished the antibiotics I developed mastitis again, this time in a different part of my breast.  I went back to the doctor and was prescribed the same antibiotics.  The mastitis again cleared up quickly but returned, this time in the other breast, a few days after I finished the antibiotics.  This pattern continued until my baby was 11 months old, so for 6 months. 

The strangest thing about this mastitis was that it never seemed to be the result of a blocked duct (I felt my breasts and there was never a definite hard area, but tried massaging down to my nipple anyway) and was always in a different position from the previous time.  It was also never painful to feed from the affected breast, thank goodness.

After 6 months I finally thought to ask my doctor for a different type of antibiotics but he refused to prescribe anything other than the original ones.  That was the last time I saw that doctor.  I found a new doctor and he prescribed a different type of antibiotics, saying I should never have been on the other ones for mastitis as it was well-known that they often didn’t work.  I started taking the new antibiotics and changed from using regular to antibacterial soap in the shower.  The mastitis cleared immediately, I continued using the antibacterial soap and the mastitis never returned.  I’m still not sure if it was because I finally got the right sort of antibiotics, or that I disinfected my breasts daily with the antibacterial soap.  Whatever the reason I’m glad it never came back.

During the time of my recurrent mastitis it would have been easy to say that breastfeeding was making me sick and wean my son, but I was convinced of the health benefits of continuing to breastfeed him, despite the mastitis, so continued to do so.  I am really happy that our breastfeeding relationship was not cut short by illness, and was able to conclude naturally when both of us were ready.