Breastfeeding: my dirty little secret

Still in pain, but it's time to move on, blog-wise.

I am a huge, huge advocate of breastfeeding. Unless you're a drug addict, it is the best thing to feed your baby. It's natural, it's usually on tap, and it's free. It contains everything nutritionally that your baby needs for the first year of life (although most babies are interested in solids before then). And it can also be incredibly difficult, painful and frustrating. Part of the problem is that we don't have a breastfeeding culture, I mean, before you have a baby, how many women do you see breastfeeding?

I couldn't do it, not exclusively, and I was horribly ashamed of it. My baby had sucking issues that took two and a half weeks to diagnose, I had an unsympathetic pediatrition and in the time it took to figure things out, my supply nearly dried up. After a month of working with a lactation consultant and the prescription drug Reglan, I was finally able to give him mainly breast milk. Then I had to go back to work. I was exhausted, overstressed, suffering from Postpartum Depression and had an extremely unsympathetic company. In the nine weeks that I attempted to be a working mom, my supply dropped precipitiously so that by the last week at work, pumping four times a day, I was getting an ounce or two of milk. Add in the fact that baby had been on the bottle for most of his waking hours at day care, and he had lost interest in my breasts. I dried up completely at seven and a half months and still mourn it (and I totally allowed the bottle before nap and bedtime for much longer than I should have because of my guilt, we finally got rid of them this weekend at seventeen and a half months).

To focus on the positive: this time around I know what I'm doing, even if my new baby still won't. I know and trust the lactation consultants at the hospital and will go in at the first sign of trouble. I swear that this time I will join La Leche League (I was too depressed to, last time). And each time you have a new baby, you have more milk ducts, and more milk production. The fact that I'm already up to a D from my little As this soon is also a good sign (last time my breasts didn't really grow until the end, which I've heard is a bad sign). So here is keeping my fingers crossed. Oh, and hopefully this time I will get over any shame of having problems much faster, too.