Thoughts on breastfeeding

So....breast feeding. What a crazy ride. One that looks to be over for me.

Today is a day of many tears and emotions. I am on the cusp of one of, it turns out, the most emotionally charged decisions I have ever made. I never thought I would say that about lactation.

To continue to breast feed...or switch to bottle feeding.

Today was not the first difficult day we've had nursing. But it is the day that I have come this close to giving up on breast feeding. It's been 17 days. And I don't have enough milk to feed my baby. As we wrestled this morning - him pulling away, and me to forcing him back to the breast - to nurse for the allotted time period, my exasperation brought me to this place where I have been hovering all day. On the brink of switching to formula. I cannot get past the fact that Atticus is so much happier after I've given him a bottle of formula.

It certainly isn't for lack of trying. Epic nursing sessions, pumping, Mothers milk tea, lactation herbs, chiropractic work...increasing my milk supply is all consuming. And still, I ask myself, "Am I doing enough? Have I done everything I possibly can to make this work? Have I given it enough time?"


Here is the place I'm getting to. I'm not there yet, but I'm about to be.

I have done enough.

Tonight, as breastfeeding began to slip away from me - we wrestled for only 10 minutes in his late afternoon feeding, before I caved in and gave him a bottle, and I skipped nursing all together and went straight for the bottle in the evening feeding - I felt a weight begin to lift from my chest. And as that weight lifted, I started to delight in my baby. When I skipped the battle royale of nursing altogether - when he wasn't frustrated with me, and I with him - I saw him in that moment more clearly and beautiful than I ever have in the 17 days of his life.

As I write this, the tears come for what feels like the millionth time today. The choice is so obvious in my mind. But my heart is broken. I had an expectation, a vision of how it would be to nurse my baby. That we would bond and I would love it. But I don't.

I hate breastfeeding. I resent it.

I'm on the eve of a difficult decision. Once I make the decision I can move forward without looking back.  But it's the making of the decision that is so hard. Because something has to happen before I can commit to the decision to bottle feed. I have to mourn the loss of breastfeeding, and let go of the expectations I had. It is stressing me out. I am holding on to the ideal that I had in my mind when I was pregnant. I have to let it go. It is hurting me and diminishing my enjoyment of these special days. I have to let it go. So right now, all the hurt and disappointment is washing over me and soaking into my pores and I'm letting my heart bleed. I'm going to wallow in it for a few brief moments. I need to do this so I can move on.

Once I have grieved breastfeeding and let go of my expectations, I will enjoy my baby more. I know it. And I will tuck away in my heart my experience with breastfeeding in the same place that I keep the memory of the moment when Amanda handed me her baby for the last time and told me to take good care of him. These memories can only be spoken of infrequently, and in the most sensitive of ways.