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.

We hit many obstacles including, poor weight gain, week suck and tongue tie. I was never able to fully breastfeed him as he would get too tired, therefore for 5 months I expressed for Brendan. My milk eventually dried up and even after seeking professional help, which wasn’t helpful (I was in a remote community and only had 1 Dr and 1 community child health nurse) I am very proud to have made 5.5 months of full EBM with NO FORMULA!

When I was pregnant with my second child, I was even more determined to get him to breastfeed. I armed myself with lots of information and knew that should I run into milk supply troubles there were things I could do to help. At just 26 weeks I went into pre-mature labour. Thankfully they were able to stop it and I was given steroids to help my baby’s lungs. I kept going into labour until eventually, at 34+2 weeks, they decided not to stop it anymore. Tristan was born at 34+3 and spent just 6 days in NICU and 2 days rooming in with me. Tristan is also tongue-tied, but not to the same extent Brendan was and therefore breastfeeding is easier for us. He was fully suck fed by day 3 and fully breastfed by day 7. He too started off on a nipple shield, due to jaundice making him sleepy, I was able to wean him off by just 3 weeks of age. Tristan is now 3 ½ months old, fully breastfed and sleeping through the night (9:30 till 7:30)!!. He was given formula in the first 6 days when there wasn’t enough EBM for him.

Update (Jan 2010): Tristan is now 6.5 months old and still breastfeeding!

I have found a recipe for lactation cookies which help increase my supply on down days or when I am sick. They are fantastic and have got me through a few rough patches. They are very addictive and anyone can eat them :D My 2yo LOVES them!

Housepoet’s Famous Lactation Boosting Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip & Flaxseed cookies

Serves: 6 dozen cookies
Preparation time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• * 1 cup butter or marg
• * 1 cup sugar
• * 1 cup brown sugar
• * 4 tablespoons water
• * 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal (can be found at any local health food store)
• * 2 large eggs
• * 1 teaspoon vanilla
• * 2 cups flour
• * 1 teaspoon baking soda
• * 1 teaspoon salt
• * 3 cups oats, thick cut if you can get them
• * 1 cup or more chocolate chips
• * 2 tablespoons of brewers yeast (be generous) (IT MUST BE BREWERS YEAST, NO SUBSTITUTIONS)

Directions:

• * Preheat oven at 375 degrees F.
• * Mix together 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal and water, set aside for 3-5 minutes.
• * Cream (beat well) margarine and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mix well.
• * Stir flaxseed mixture and add with vanilla to the margarine mix. Beat until blended.
• * Sift together dry ingredients, except oats and chips. Add to margarine mixture. Stir in oats then chips.
• * Scoop or drop onto baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment or silpat. The dough is a little crumbly, so it helps to use a scoop.
• * Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on size of cookies.

I make mine into 2 slices, just make sure the slice is no thinker than a cookie. It’s quicker and easier that way, especially with kiddies running around :-D

Audrey didn’t latch well, and it took a long time for my milk to come in, maybe 5 or 6 days.  I was happy to demand feed, I knew it was optimal.  And I knew what a good latch was meant to look like, and only very rarely did we get anything resembling one.  I was always being asked when and how long she’d fed, in a clockless room, on strong pain relief, which complicated my reporting of popping her on and off the boob on cue.  So more stress for not being compliant. 

The night nurses were relentless in badgering me to “top her up”, tsk tsk’ing over how “dry” she was, telling me the urates in her nappy was because she was dehydrated.  On the back of everything we’d experienced, with a brand new baby, the stress of this was unbelievable.  Eventually I told them if they wanted me to supplement I’d only do it after speaking to a paediatrician.  ”Oh you don’t have to ask a doctor, we can just give it to her!” the nurse exclaimed.  I think they worked undercover for formula manufacturers, missing my point that I wasn’t giving it to her without a clear and present danger of something horrible happening without it.

Thankfully the paediatrician confirmed she wasn’t dehydrated and told me “I hate formula” which made me feel I’d finally found someone who had cracked open a book on infant feeding in the last 30 years!  I had a visit from a lactation consultant, and to be perfectly honest I can’t recall the substance of that visit, whether we discussed the possibility of tongue tie or not, but I think not, as no plans past visiting the breastfeeding clinic on discharge were made.  My nipples were quite damaged at this point.

We eventually got discharged, with extra domiciliary visits to monitor her weight as she’d lost 420grams from her 4000 gram birth weight, and had only stabilised the loss over 2 days before we left.  The first domiciliary nurse we met, when she was 9 days old, confirmed she had tongue tie and referred us to a GP to have it assessed and snipped.  We attended the breastfeeding clinic the next day, where I felt more and more the problem was Audrey’s tongue, not me being too damn dense to get the lesson of how to latch a newborn on.  On her 12th day, we attended the GP to have her tongue tie looked at.

From what I can gather, snipping tight frenulums had been out of favour for awhile.  I knew about it from one of the books I’d read, which I believe now was a copy of Babies, Breastfeeding and Bonding by Ina May Gaskin, which I’d borrowed from my library.  I knew it could save a breastfeeding relationship.  Most other sources I found were far more conservative about snipping them, although nearly all reported it was a very mild procedure.

Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t like that for Audrey.  She screamed and bled a lot and was obviously in distress for many hours after the snip.  I believe her frenulum was quite thick and short.  I’ve felt bad for years since that I took other people’s word that it wouldn’t hurt – I felt it was the same lie they tell about circumcision.  Both my partner and I remember it with a pretty heavy heart.  However, she was able to latch on, still crying, to my breast immediately, and for the first time we had an awesome, easily achieved latch!  We attended the breastfeeding clinic again two days later, where I got some more advice about latch, but really the greatest thing was finally having something nice said to me … the lactation consultant there told me Audrey was a very lucky baby as I left her on to dream feed.  So nice to finally get some kudos for doing what I felt was right, and not constant worry and criticism on top of my own concerns.

It took my nipples a few weeks to recover.  Audrey was never a great weight gainer on breastmilk alone.  In retrospect, my breasts changed minimally in her pregnancy compared to my next, and I think the physical difficulties plus 12 days of nipple feeding meant I never established a very plentiful supply.  However, I was a faithful demand feeder, and she fed a LOT!  She exclusively breastfed for 6 months, and we ended our breastfeeding relationship shortly after her 5th birthday.  Breastfeeding Audrey has been something beautiful in life I am very grateful for.  Apart from some marathon feeds that taught me the meaning of patience, we had a dream run, it was always the easiest part of mothering her.

Owen was born last month.  I had learnt in the meantime that a lack of Vitamin A could be implicated in tongue tie, so was hoping my conception regime would mean we dodged that bullet.  But I knew pretty soon after his birth he had a tongue tie, he had the classic heart shaped tongue when he poked it out.  Whereas Audrey couldn’t poke hers out at all, his was longer and more stretchy. 

We’d planned a homebirth but because of complications we were in hospital.  Despite it being a world away from our first experience, I told noone about his tongue tie, wanting to blow that joint and deal with it later as he was latching reasonably well and causing no nipple damage.  My milk was in quite early and the nurses didn’t care so much we fed a lot, I’d just make up a last time he fed time for them that looked good!  There was many spooky similarities between their births, but with a twist – like this time the nurse was changing his nappy for me while I hobbled to the loo.  She asked me to come look in his nappy and showed me the urates.  ”Here we go again!” I thought, but then she proceeded to explain they are normal and she didn’t want me to worry and think it was blood.  I bet it is something she has told a thousand mothers, but she will never know how that little bit of kindness and concern for us helped undo a bit of the manipulation and lack of care of how I felt the time before, when I felt they were gagging to get formula down my baby’s throat!

When the baby doctor was checking him for discharge, she discovered his tongue tie.  She was already going the extra mile to get us out of there that day (he too had had iv antibiotics and she’d been great about chasing up test results and ending treatment early, and wasn’t worried about his almost 10% weight loss) and I was really not happy to have his tongue tie hold us up!  Things move slowly in hospitals in my experience.  She had a lactation consultant come and assess him, and it was found he easily qualified for a snip based on the criteria.  She reiterated to me what I knew from 5 years ago, that we might get by on hormonal supply for 6 weeks and find we run into supply problems and a difficult to correct latch, even if my nipples were now pliant and tough enough to cope!  And that we still would have the long term risks of caries and speech impediments.  With a lot of anxiety an hour later I accompanied him down to the treatment room with the LC and baby doctor, promising him this was the last awful thing that would happen and we were going home.  I told them Audrey’s snip had been horrific and they tried to assure me that was extremely unusual.  They sat me on a chair, and had him on the treatment table.  He complained with a little squawk as she opened his mouth with her fingers, and I looked away.  Then they seemed to just sit him up, told me it was done and he was just looking around.  He wasn’t bleeding.  He was completely unfazed!  Meanwhile I had begun to shake, as I had expected to be focusing on and feeding a screaming hurt baby – I could keep myself together for my boy, but he didn’t need me to, and so now all my emotions bubbled over.  The lactation consultant had to carry him back to our room, I was too flustered, telling her repeatedly how I wish my partner could have seen that and how different it was from Audrey’s.

In many ways, his being so minor like I was led the believe before hers, has relieved a lot of my guilt about her pain.  I always felt it was the one thing that allowed us to breastfeed but couldn’t help feel bad about her suffering, and like I’d been a fool to believe it wouldn’t be bad.

3 and a bit weeks in, we’ve already had a dream run feeding, tongue tie didn’t even make a dent.  He feeds very differently than his sister, she was way more committed, he mucks about a lot more and somehow thinks his little fists might give him some joy as he bats away my boob to try and latch on them instead!  However, I hope we enjoy a long loving stint as a breastfeeding duo, and I am looking forward to the years ahead of us.

However then it all went wrong. With my first pregnancy I had a complete placental abruption.  Basically my placenta fell off and our little boy died.  He was 36 wks gestation and just lovely.  It was a hard to cope with and made even harder by my first experience of lactation – which was to suppress it.  Most people that have such a huge bleed don’t even get their milk in.  Mine was there in buckets.

Life settled a bit and I became pregnant 6mths after Liam’s birth.  Due to my history and Liam being 36wks I booked for an elective caesarean at 34 weeks plus 6 days.  This of course would result in the baby going to the Centre for Newborn Care (CNC).  Not that I really cared about that but it was going to be odd given that my husband worked there permanently and I also did casual shifts there.

My booked LSCS (lower segment caesarean section) was on time, a blessing for someone who doesn’t do the whole fasting thing very well.  I tend to get very cranky.  I had a spinal – similar to an epidural.  That went well pain/feeling wise. Although the wardsman seemed to think bending over a baby wasn’t difficult and wanted more bend!!  The block went right up to my arm pits, making it quite difficult to breathe. Oliver was fine as he came out and I was able to see him briefly.  My husband whisked him off to the isolette to keep him warm (with stories of cold babies ringing in our ears) and off they went to the CNC.  

I took a while in recovery as the block just wouldn’t go.  My left leg was numb for 8hrs.  I went back to the ward via the CNC.  I couldn’t believe my eyes that there was Oliver.  I had wanted to get him out for a breastfeed but he was having problems breathing and was needing O2 and in an isolette. Nothing unusual for a LSCS and a boy. Visiting the CNC post delivery was fantastic. There is nothing worse then arriving in your room post delivery with no baby.

Back on the ward the midwife got me to express. Well that was fun: lying slightly propped, so bombed on pain relief I couldn’t focus or speak without slurring, trying to capture colostrum. Most of it ran down my hands but we got a bit and my husband Mick took it up to the CNC.

The next day I went up to the CNC in a wheelchair. I had given up on the IV pain relief by that stage, so I could use my brain. Oliver was looking much better, off O2 and in an open cot.  

So we had a go at breastfeeding. Trying to attach a very small baby (he was 2.4kg) was tricky and time consuming.  He had no idea and didn’t think a nice wide mouth at all necessary.  It also turned out he was just too small to suck hard enough to draw out my inverted nipples.  Luckily for me there was a lactation consultant on.  She came and assessed the non attaching feed and suggested using nipple shields.  Once I started using nipple shields it all fell in to place. Oliver was able to attach and suck well. It was certainly not comfortable feeding, in fact down right excruciating would be a good term. Sucking basically rips all the tissue attachments that keep the nipple in. I screwed up my toes and breathed deeply.  Feeds hurt the most at the start and then settled to a dull pain which I could cope with.  

I found feeding problematic in that it was hard to get everything organised post caesarean – pillows, baby, the towel to catch vomits (his) and leaks (mine and his), nipple shields (those things are tricky to get on and then just as you’re ready they fall off). The lack of privacy didn’t help either. My top was always in the way and really I would have liked to just get rid of it. Nevertheless once I was set Oliver fed well. He was getting more than enough milk, even though it took an hour each time.  Oliver also vomited lots.  He had reflux and didn’t like formula.  Once I had enough breast milk happening the volumes of his vomits decreased.  I later discovered that he didn’t tolerate cow’s milk anyway.  Custard, cream, cow’s milk all led to vomiting. 

To start with Oliver only breastfed twice a day because it he was too tired to do more. Being under phototherapy for 24hrs didn’t help either.  To start with Oliver breastfed once in the morning and once in the evening – as far apart time wise as we could manage. The rest of the feeds were via the nasogastric (NG) tube, a tube through the nose into the stomach. I expressed each time he didn’t breastfeed and was having a hard time keeping up with the volume required. Babies in the CNC receive set volumes calculated on the baby’s weight.  It is very disconcerting to know exactly how much milk you need to produce.  And the likelihood that you will immediately produce this much is very slim, particularly with first time breastfeeders.

Expressing was a bit of a shock too.  I seemed to need to express every time I turned around.  I’d go and visit Oliver and need to express, I’d finally make it back to the ward only to realise I needed to express. I was OK up in the CNC as the expressing room was quite close.  However on the ward the room where the pumps were kept was way down the corridor.  Then the pump had to be returned after use in case someone else needed it.  It all turned out to be an awful lot of exercise for someone who was supposed to take it easy post caeser.  Then of course was the added extra that I’m sure those pumps were an instrument of torture.  For the first time breastfeeder the suction on pumps is so strong.  I couldn’t turn it down far enough and so gritted my teeth and screwed up my toes again. A lesson on how to hand express to start with wouldn’t have gone astray.  I had a picture of Oliver to have with me when expressing.  Although I think the pain associated with pumping probably negated any good psychological effect the photo may have had.

Of course once I really got into breastfeeding I could have used a pump with suction twice as strong.  I remember shocking a newly breastfeeding mum with turning the suction and rate right up before I’d even started.  She didn’t believe me that she’d get there too.

I spent most of my day in the CNC.  It was easier then going up and down and doing lots of walking.  I would nurse Oliver and read in between breastfeeds and tubes – tubes being feeds via a tube into Oliver’s stomach. The CNC was busy as usual, so I did most of the NG tube feeds. I mean I’d had the practice before.  I also took Oliver down stairs with me frequently. So much so that the other parents were questioning why I could do that and they couldn’t. They didn’t seem to understand really that we both worked in the CNC and it really did make a difference. 

The expressing room was also an eye opener regarding what the parents knew about babies other than their own.  Basically they knew most of the information that they could understand – and all this with out having asked the babies parents. Also there was a lot of gossip and discussion about how stupid it was they couldn’t look at other people’s babies and had to leave during handover.  There was no recognition of confidentiality at all.  It wasn’t all mothers but a majority.  I just sat and listened and got out quick. 

I was discharged on day 6.  Oliver stayed for 14 days.  We could have taken him home a bit earlier but I had a panic attack about coping with breastfeeds and tubes and expressing.  

Once I was discharged I got lifts back to the hospital and stayed until someone could pick me up. My husband Mick had gone back to work at this stage so I would go in with Mum at 8.30 and come home with Mick at 9.30pm when he finished his shift.  Between not being able to drive and trying to get in enough suck feeds so we could go home I ended up staying at the hospital for 14 hrs a day.  Not very restful.  I would however manage to fit in 3-4 breastfeeds each day. To go home with the neonatal early discharge program the baby needs to have 4 sucks feeds and the parents be taught to do the rest with tubes. The tubes weren’t an issue but those breastfeeds were hard to get in.  I could have agreed to a bottle at night but I really wasn’t keen to do that. I can see that if I had other children at home I may have gone with that option in order to get home though.

We were booked in with early discharge program. They would come and do 2 tubes a day, check and weigh the baby.  It’s a brilliant service and means you get the baby home much more quickly.

Finally on a Tuesday I had had enough of being in hospital and at work with my baby. We were booked to go the next day, that being when early discharge program could fit us in, but I wanted out NOW.  Mick was on a morning so finishing at 3.30pm so we went home with him.  I was lovely to be at home.  Straight away everything was easier.  I was able to do alternate tube breastfeeds that night.  The only unfortunate thing was when my milk came in there was masses of it. So I still had to express once I’d breastfed.  

Having to breastfeed or tube and express every 3 hours was mind numbing. I had a sheet of paper with feed times, which side and how much, written down. Otherwise I had no idea what was happening. The alarm clock was also a life saver. Once Oliver was only having the odd tube feed things were a lot easier. I wasn’t so tired and just breastfeeding meant a lot less cleaning, sterilizing etc.

Oliver was a keen breastfeeder and we got the hang of it reasonably quickly.  I had masses of milk so I never had a low supply issue even though I used nipple shields for 4mths.  In fact he was such a pig he would vomit because he drank too much and then vomit from his reflux.  Very very messy and meant lots of clothes washing.  After a week we did away with the NG tube. Oliver helped by pulling it out.  He continued to grow well and we were discharged from early discharge program.

My next baby Sophie was a different ball game.

With my 2nd pregnancy I had used a manual pump to express at home and I wasn’t going to do that again.  So very early on I found out about hiring pumps. The person I spoke to suggested expressing prior to the baby’s birth.  Given I knew she would be early it seemed like a good idea.  I expressed once a day the week before my booked caesarean. I managed to express 100mls.  It was quite amazing how quickly I had milk given the few times I expressed.

On the day of Sophie’s birth Mick took the breast milk round to the CNC.  They were all very impressed.  

Funnily enough Sophie was also born at 34+6 wks gestation.  She only had problems with maintaining her temperature and was in an isolette on and off. The temperature was partly to do with her size.  Sophie was only 2kg. 

The block from the spinal with Sophie’s caesarean was much lower, only to my belly button to be exact.  This was on the painful side during the delivery.  Though it also meant I was out of recovery visiting Sophie with in a couple of hours.  Sophie was wide awake looking round.  So she was popped out and put to the breast.  My position, lying fairly flat wasn’t optimal but she knew what to do and managed to lick and have the odd suck. There was milk going everywhere so we were both fairly wet by the time she finished.

Back on the ward I hand expressed 20mls of milk to the astonishment of the midwife. The next day the milk had gone and the colostrum was back.  It only took 2 days for my milk to come in though.  So Sophie didn’t ever have any formula.

Breastfeeding this time round was so much easier even though I had started to wonder did I still know how to feed a newborn. But it was fine.  Sophie knew what she was doing.  I knew I needed to use nipple shields and I remembered all the positioning and attachment. Of course I wasn’t learning everything from scratch.  And any privacy issues didn’t concern me, having breastfed all over the place with Oliver I was used to it. All I wanted was to get home. 

One of the other things I remember well was that I was starving.  I am always hungry when pregnant and it increases when I’m feeding. I wasn’t able to walk the distance to the café post-caesarean, Mick only came in, late in the afternoon with Oliver. And my sister had just had her baby so my visitors were a bit light on too. There just wasn’t enough food in the place. I was glad to get home and be able to eat lots!

On Day 6 I was discharged home and Sophie came too.  She was still having issues with her temperature so we had to check that frequently.  She also was only having 2 breastfeeds a day at the start.  Meaning I had to tube 6 feeds.  Thankfully she progressed quickly to more breastfeeds. We came home again with the early discharge program follow-up. We were discharged from the early discharge program after 4wks.  About the same time as Oliver even though he was in hospital longer. 

It was exhausting doing that many tube feeds and I had a major oversupply issue.  I had to write everything down again. Sophie only fed from one side, and then I would need to express the other for comfort.  It took about 4wks to decrease my supply to Sophie’s needs.  She continued to fed on one side at a time for about 6mths till she grew a bit more.

When Sophie was 4 weeks old I realised she had a tongue tie.  Enough to make her tongue a bit heart shaped.  This really didn’t seem to affect us.  It remained there until she got her bottom teeth at 12 months and cut the frenulum. 

So the same age babies in the CNC and 2 very different experiences. 

I continued to feed Oliver with no real problems till he and I weaned at 19mths when I was 18wks pregnant.  Sophie after a great start had lots of different issues cumulating in breast refusal at 17mths.  She completely stopped, going from 5 feeds plus a day to zero.

A was a much anticipated first bebe and it didn’t ever occur to me that things would be anything but natural and enjoyable.  Of course, not necessarily easy, but if we followed our intuition then all would work out.  I suppose, in pregnancy bliss, one can’t even contemplate the difficulties of a baby screaming constantly with acid reflux, severe allergies and even being tongue tied!  What a combination, especially when one is living in a foreign country where you can’t speak the language and away from normal support structures.

Almost from when A was born, he cried.  Our poor little mouse.  The first attempts to breastfeed were painful and difficult, he didn’t latch on properly and I can remember what seemed like an endless stream of midwifes thrusting by engorged breasts into his tiny red screaming mouth.  Even when I got the hang of the positioning, his sucking felt like broken glass piercing the most sensitive part of my body.  In desperation I started taking pain killers in order to feed him.

I have a strong memory of mother, a committed breast feeder of my younger sister (after suffering two first bebes, my brother and I, in humidity cribs that couldn’t feed) pleading with me to stop trying.  She and I were crying hysterically and the pain that I felt seemed to be an endless cycle between short bursts of sleep. Yet I persisted.

In addition to the constant crying, A pooed constantly with acidic green slime emerging from his cloth nappies.  His tummy was constantly swollen and he barely slept.

I searched for help online and found it in the form of Mary and a wonderful lactation consultant in Brisbane who despite being on a different time zone (we lived in Europe) spent hours on the phone with me making me feel ‘less crazy’.  Following a photo that I sent through to her of A, she casually remarked that he was tongue tied!  I couldn’t believe that hours one on one with lactation nurses in Europe had failed to notice that small fact!  Somehow the explanation for the pain in feeding made me feel justified and not totally insane.

A also had allergies, as it turned out to egg, diary, nuts, seafood and wheat.  I forced myself to eat meat (having been a vegetarian for 15 years) and survived on quinoa, celery, lamb, chicken and garlic so that I could keep breastfeeding A.  It helped marginally, but he even reacted to brown rice. Not surprisingly I ended up in hospital having lost so much weight and weighed down with considerable stress, and to be honest guilt, that everything that I consumed could be hurting my red faced screaming little fellow.

Of course, over time things improved.  I was forced to eat a wider range of foods.  A did not consume solids for 10 months and I breastfed him for 2 years, despite starting a highly demanding job when he was 10 months old.  I have to laugh remembering how I used to run into the bathroom to express and then treated the breast milk as pure gold, not the usual run of things in a large law firm!

When I look back, I am not sure that I could have done any of this without the strong sense of love and commitment that I felt to my little A and the support that I got from my amazing husband and from gorgeous Mary, herself going through so much with little C.  Interestingly though when I think back to a very challenging first year with A, the highlight is the closeness that I achieved with him through breastfeeding.

As I rub my growing belly, I can only pray that my next little one does not have to face the same early challenges.  Breastfeeding is an amazing gift, but at the same time, I would never judge anybody that doesn’t because I know that it’s not always easy.