I went to parenting classes, I bought breastfeeding support underwear—I was ready to be a mom who wanted to breastfeed her babies.
But two days after my baby was born, my breasts were not releasing milk.
I massaged, ate fatty foods, drank lots of milk but by the third day I had to go back to the hospital on the advice of the midwife. My child was starving.
When they put a mechanical breast pump on my breast at the hospital, it produced blood instead of milk.
I thought, what is wrong with me? Is my body rejecting the idea of motherhood? And then it turned out that my baby was sucking my nipples so hard in search of milk that they were injured.
I wish I had known that breastfeeding does not start naturally. It is a process of making mistakes and learning from them. You get better with experience.
There is no shortage of techniques in this regard, but it is not always easy and can often be very painful.
Loneliness
Even after my body realized this fact and my baby started drinking my milk, life didn’t get any easier. Far from taking a bath or spending time in front of the mirror at will, I barely had time to sleep.
Sometimes I could leave the house and kept thinking what my neighbors would think, what would my friends think?
My favorite places became no-go areas because I was reluctant to breastfeed in public. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and sit alone to breastfeed the baby.
It seems that I am left alone in the world. I was on the brink of postpartum depression and had no one to support me.
I wish I had known that taking care of yourself in this situation is just as important as taking care of the baby. A calm and healthy mother is much better than a worried and frustrated one.
A sense of guilt remains
The first time my baby was given formula in the hospital, he slept for hours. It occurred to me that if I ever needed sleep myself, I could give him a bottle instead of my own milk.
But then it didn’t take long for a feeling of remorse to overtake me. My baby’s tongue turned white from canned milk. It felt a bit unnatural. I felt that I was feeding my baby a ‘junk food’ instead of the delicious and natural breast milk.
Whenever I would give him a bottle of milk for his convenience, I would get this feeling. I kept thinking that I could have done more. I didn’t need to sleep an hour longer.
I wish I knew that feeling of regret doesn’t go away, but it’s also true that every mother makes her own schedule and knows what’s best for her baby – breast milk or something else.
You can’t live with regrets, but that’s not a sign of a bad mother, it’s a sign of a responsible mother.
Don’t hesitate to seek help
Breastfeeding is a multi-million dollar industry. There is a solution for any small problem you just have to open your pocket.
I found a whole section of things from breast warmers to nipple creams for moms like me at my local market.
But the most important therapy for me has been attending breastfeeding workshops and getting advice and guidance from people who have been through it.
I wish I knew that I wasn’t the only mother with breastfeeding difficulties and that there is help out there for mothers like me and the best course of action is to call for help if you get stuck.
Breastfeeding is not mandatory. I think it should be a default option but failing and not breastfeeding doesn’t make you a bad mother.