To Boob or Not To Boob (Guest Blogger)

I have talked before on my blog about the hardship I experienced trying to breastfeed, and the guilt and judgment I felt/still feel for not being successful.  So, I asked my best friend (who blogs at A Jane of All Trades, Master of None), to do a guest blog on why she chose not to breastfeed.  So with that, let's welcome a wonderful woman, teacher, mother, and BFF!....

Ever since I was pregnant with my first daughter I have been plagued with the question, “Are you going to breast feed?” 

The first time someone asked me, I was barely pregnant and I was a little taken aback by this question.  I didn’t know people readily asked this question and I didn’t know it was anyone’s business.  I know I had never ever thought to ask another woman this question.

Then another person asked me. 

WHAT!?  Is this normal?

Then another person asked.

Each time I was asked, I responded with “We’re going to try.”  It seemed like the right answer and it usually stopped any further questions that concerned what my child would eat and where she would get it from. 

Deep down though, I knew I was really struggling with the thought of breastfeeding.  I knew all the health benefits.  I knew it would save us money.  I knew I would lose the weight faster, but honestly it creeped me out.

And before you judge, let me explain.  My mom had me at 17 and her number one goal in life was to make sure that NEVER happened to me.  From the time I was 12, I was told “I don’t care if you have sex, but he and you better be protected.” 

I felt like I heard this every day of my life...

And you would think with talk like that, sexuality and your body would be an open discussion in our house.  No.  It was actually quite the opposite. 

Some examples: I was not allowed to walk around in t-shirts because of my brothers.  My mom mortified me by telling her friends when I got my first period.  I once had a friend (around 13) who didn’t wear underwear to bed, and when I asked my parents about this, they practically chastised the girl and her parents.  If I wore an outfit that was maybe tight or slightly inappropriate, my aunt told me I deserved to be raped.

By the time I was actually at the age of being sexual, sex was cold for me.  I associated sex with teenage pregnancy, and I associated my body with something that needed to be secret.  To this day, I will do everything to make sure no one sees me naked.  Even my husband didn’t actually see me naked for a good while after we were already having sex.

Fast forward to January 2007.  I was 3 months out from being a mom and I still had no idea what I was going to do about breast feeding.  I had gone from “I will try” to “maybe I’ll just pump.” 

Then I visited my friend after right after delivering her baby.  While I was there it was feeding time, and she fed him without hesitation right there in front of my friend and me.  She didn’t cover herself, and honestly, she didn’t need to.  But it was in that moment that I knew I was not going to be able to do it.  I knew that I was so uncomfortable in my own skin that breastfeeding would not be possible. 

I am not disgusted by others that breastfeed.  I’m not anti-breastfeeding.  I hate that society accepts Brittney’s cleavage spilling out, but then want women to breastfeed in a restaurant bathroom.

What I disagree with is the constant judgment that I faced (and still face now with my second child).  Worse yet, I hate the judgment that women who really did try face.  And ladies, it is not the men who judge us...it is other women. Women are so mean.

And we call ourselves a sisterhood?  Really? 

Each and every mother will be faced with a point where she will know all the disadvantages and advantages of her actions, and will make the decision to do what is right for her. 

And they can call her selfish.  And they say she is a bad mother.  And they launch campaign after campaign that puts her down for her choice.  But in the end, it is her decision.  And just as I don’t want the government making decisions about my body, I don’t want my "sisterhood" deeming me unfit because of MY decisions about my body.

With my second daughter, who was born just a month ago, I have learned to say “breastfeeding didn’t work for us,” when asked if I am breast feeding.  What I really want to say though is "What did you feed your kid last night?  Was it the best possible choice?  Could you have done something else?"  Just so they get how inappropriate and not their business their question is.

Five years late, I can say that my first born is very healthy.  She has the occasional ear infection, but honestly we really only have to go to the doctor about twice a year.  She is incredibly bright and inquisitive.  And her weight is exactly on point for her height and age.  She is all of those things that the breastfeeding campaigns promise you your formula fed baby won't be.

And so maybe I didn’t lose that baby weight, but I’m okay with that.

The F-Word

Dedicated to the women of the world that think "the real 'F' word is formula":

Like many expectant moms, I read plenty about how to best care for my babies. And in my reading and  research, I decided that breast was best and that because of that I would be nursing my twins for at least the first year of their life (I'd play it by ear from there...).

I ordered an EZ-2-Nurse pillow, specifically designed for nursing twins, a breast pump, and 0 bottles.  We moved to a rental house less than 1 mile from my office, so I could nurse after going back to work.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 were born 35 w 2 d.  So they were a little early, but not much (36 weeks is considered full term for twins).  They weighed 5 lb 13 oz and 5 lb 7 oz.

The first thing the hospital staff did when the boys were born was put in a feeding tube through their nose.  Apparently this was standard for babies this small.  Their first feeding was formula.  I actually was kind of pissed that they didn't consult me for any of this.  But the nurses kept insisting on the importance of bringing up their body weight.

Before I ever put the babies to breast, I used a pump.  I squeezed out the most minuscule amount of colostrum.  This went straight into their feeding tubes.

The nurses literally weighed the boys with a super scale before and after each attempt to nurse, and if they didn't gain enough ounces, they would then feed them through the nose tube.  (No sucking necessary.)

A friend of mine recently had a premature baby here at the hospital where we live now and instead of a nose tube, they made the baby suck on her finger while she slowly fed through a syringe on the side...teaching the baby he had to suck to get a full belly.  I wish we'd done that with my boys.  Because I feel like the nose tube made them lazy!  They didn't need to suck hard to get a full belly, so why bother working so hard at breast time if afterwards you'd get rewarded anyway?  (By the way, the staff is coming off very unsupportive, but this isn't true.  They all cheered me on at my insistence to nurse. They wanted me to succeed, but they also had a job to make sure the boys were as well taken care of medically as possible.)

I held out not giving my boys a bottle for 11 days!!

The doctor wouldn't sent them home from the hospital until they were over 6 lbs and feeding on their own (no nose tube).  And after 11 days of traveling back and forth to the hospital every day...I finally broke down and gave them bottles, because I just wanted to bring them home!  # 1 I'd been in that hospital for 12 weeks on strict medically prescribed bedrest.  #2 the hospital was a 30 min drive from our house, so every day I was getting up and commuting (even though I wasn't supposed to drive after my c-section) to the hospital in time to be there for the 7:30 am feeding.  Then I would pump.  Then take a nap in a room with one of the boys on my chest doing Kangaroo care.  Then feed. Then pump. Then nap with the other baby.  Then feed. Then pump. Then nap. All day. When Superman got off work, he'd meet me up at the hospital for dinner.  We'd stay there until the boys' 9:30 feeding and then drive home for the night.  (I wanted to stay at the hospital and try feeding through the night too, but the nurses insisted I needed rest.  They said that the stress and exhaustion might be part of the problem with my milk supply.)  After almost two weeks of this, I broke down and said "take out the feeding tube and just give them a bottle."

When we left that day, I took one of the hospital grade pumps home with me. If I couldn't get the boys to latch, I'd at least pump and feed them my own milk.  Heck, I could do that for at least 6 months right?

We also took home a supplemental nursing system to use with it, because I was trying to get the boys to suck at the breast to encourage production...but it was not practical for me being at home all alone with twins and I just couldn't get it to work the way it was supposed to.

As I've explained before, my supply was pitiful. My milk never fully came in. I never (ever) had "let down".  I drank Mother's Milk tea. I took Fenugeek supplements. I drank liters and liters of water. I did kangaroo care. I pumped every 2 hours, on the dot. But still I barely made enough to feed one baby, let alone two.

Then, after 8 weeks of pumping and supplementing with formula (or really I should say after 8 weeks of feeding formula and supplementing with breast milk), my supply finally gave up.  And so did I.

So I'm here to say "Don't you dare compare formula to a four-letter word!"  Formula is what kept my babies from starving when my breasts didn't do as nature intended.  Would I have preferred to feed my children 100% breastmilk, sure I would have. Because as one wise mother has said: "Breast is best, but formula isn’t toxic. In fact, its pretty damn good."

Maybe I'm too sensitive

Maybe I'm too sensitive, but man I get tired of all of the breast-feeding nazis out there.  Every day I feel like I see something about how my children are going to be dumber, fatter, sicker, slower, uglier, and more cancer ridden because they were formula fed.  Actually, I'm just surprised they didn't die from SIDS since I was so uncaring enough not to breast feed them until they were old enough to chew filet mignon.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating.  A little.

But c'mon you breast feeding proponents.  Enough already.  We get it.  Breast is best.

Really, do you think there is a person out there that still doesn't understand that breast milk is the optimum choice for a baby's nutrition?  That it is biologically engineered to feed that baby.  We get it.  We all get it.

Do you think people who smoke really don't know it will cause lung cancer?

People who don't breastfeed don't not do it because they don't understand those facts...  They don't do it because their milk doesn't come in, or the baby doesn't latch right, or how about this: they just don't want to.

I have a good friend who didn't breast feed because she just thought it sounded gross.  She is very private about her body and her personal parts and didn't want a) a baby sucking on it or b) to have to breastfeed in public etc.  So she chose to bottle feed with formula.  She didn't put her baby to the breast even once.  Not even to try.  Immediately after labor she began working to dry up her swollen breasts.

Meanwhile, my milk never fully came in.  Try as I might.  I drank Mother's Milk tea.  I took Fenugeek supplements.  I drank liters and liters of water.  I did kangaroo care.  I pumped every 2 hours, on the dot.  I barely made enough to feed one baby, let alone two.  I wanted to breast feed so bad it hurt.  Literally.

I had planned to do it for a year.  We even moved within a mile of my work so that I could go home to nurse once I went back to work.  

But my children would have starved if it hadn't been for formula.  In more ways than one.  Because not only did my milk never fully come in (I never once had "let down" or "engorgement"), but also, my boys never learned to latch on.  Lactation consultant after lactation consultant, even one that specialized in preemies, couldn't help me get those boys to successfully hook up to the tap.

But I was so adamant to give my boys "the best" that I kept trying.  I was like the Little Engine That Could trying so hard to climb that mountain.  Being weighed down by weak breasts, lazy feeding babies,  post-bedrest recovery, and post-partum feelings of failure because I couldn't do this simple thing that nature had designed for my body to do.

After weeks and weeks of torturing myself...  pumping every 2-3 hours, losing sleep, crying rivers of tears each time my babies wouldn't latch or I pumped just 2 ounces, I finally considered giving up.  Superman was beyond relieved when I mentioned it.  He had been wanting me to stop trying weeks ago, but knew he couldn't suggest it.

I called a cousin of mine who I knew had gone through the same thing and eventually given up.  She's a great mom to two beautiful healthy kids.  She had quit after her breasts had failed her with her son, and had such a bad experience that she decided not to try with her daughter.  After several phone calls and hours of consoling, I knew she was right when she told me that I wasn't a bad mother for wanting to quit, that in fact, I would become a better mother after quitting because I would be able to enjoy my babies more.  Feeding time would become joyful, rather than dreaded.  I would hold my babies and smile and laugh while they ate, instead of live in constant anxiety and sadness each time feeding didn't go well.

The final straw was the morning I had pumped and pumped for 40 minutes and gotten less than an ounce.  While cleaning my pump, I accidentally spilled my milk.  And oh did I cry over spilled milk.  I had a full blown hysterical collapse.  My milk was more precious than gold to me at that point.  I was working so hard to produce even the slightest drops for my pre-mature infants...and now it was just a tiny whitish puddle on my kitchen floor.

As I was sitting on the floor sobbing and wiping my eyes, I knew.  My phone calls to my cousin weren't about looking for advice.  They were about looking for permission.  Asking permission from someone I knew to be a good mom that it was okay to quit.  I wanted to quit.

So I did.

I called the hospital and arranged for them to come get my rented hospital grade pump.

Then I called my husband and asked him to bring me home a bottle of wine.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 were 8 weeks old.

And guess what?  They didn't didn't die.  Niether did my friend's who chose not to try.  They aren't dumber, fatter, sicker, slower, or uglier than my breast fed friends' kids.  In fact, all three of the kids are incredibly bright, healthy, perfect size for their ages, and good-looking four year olds.  And we are both great moms, if I may say so myself.  We both make the best choices possible for our kids.  We put our childrens' health and happiness first.

I wonder if all of the breast-feeding propaganda bothers her like it does me.  Maybe I'm overly sensitive because I did try so hard and still failed.  To me, even four years later, it still feels like having salt rubbed over my wounds.  Like I'm being judged by people who don't even know me or my story.  Like I'm being marked as a bad mom by some imaginary Scarlett F.

It's funny, because I don't feel this way about my c-section.  Not in the least.  Would I have preferred a traditional delivery?  Sure.  But once my doctor said the c-section would be best having twins, I trusted her, accepted it, and moved on.

I don't know if it's because the c-sections vs. vaginal delivery rhetoric isn't as prevalent, or if I just don't notice it because I've never had one ounce of remorse, regret, or guilt, like I have known some other c-section mothers to have.  My babies needed to be born, and my doctor and I made an educated decision on the safest way to bring them into the world.  End of story.

Maybe it's because I feel like with my c-section I was in control.  I made the ultimate decision.  Where with the breast feeding, it seems like the decision was made for me (by my body).

So if you are a breast-feeding mommy.  Good for you!  I hope you feel lucky and blessed that you are being honored with the ability to provide and bond with your baby this way.  And if you are a struggling breast-feeding mommy, know that you have to follow your heart.  Maybe the answer is to stick with it and it will get better, but if you need to stop, it will be okay too.  I promise there are many more factors to having great kids than whether or not you breast feed.  And if you chose not to breast feed, while I may not understand it, I can respect that it is your choice.  And I'm sure your children will turn out great too.  'Cause like Superman always says "Some of my favorite people in the world were formula fed babies."  (That would be him and me. :)