“Everyone can breastfeed with the right support”

KT Mag - 7 Feb 17

I don’t think I’ll ever forget those words. My NCT class was having a special session all about breastfeeding, and the visiting breastfeeding counsellor had just told us that breastfeeding would be possible for all of us. Thinking of a good friend of mine who had tried and tried but had little-to-no milk to give her little girl, I stuck my hand up like an eager six-year-old. “But my friend couldn’t breastfeed. She tried, but she couldn’t. So is that really true?” The breastfeeding counsellor looked at me with a glazed expression and then looked away into the distance, replying “Everyone can breastfeed with the right support.”

Now don’t get me wrong. Breastfeeding counsellors can be wonderful human beings. I know plenty of people who’ve had wonderful experiences with them, and who’ve relied on their support to make breastfeeding a great success. But this one… this one, in hindsight, wasn’t helpful to say the least.

You see the problem was, I was very nervous about being a mum, and as a result, I was vulnerable. Naïve, in fact, but I don’t think that’s unusual for a first-time mum at all. Hearing her words, I came away from that session feeling like a little kid who was leaving school for the summer. I thought that maybe my friend just didn’t get the support she needed, and that I – I with my secret knowledge about just trying that little bit harder than perhaps she did – I would be able to make it work. And I so wanted to make breastfeeding work. I remember talking to one of the other mums in the loos after the session. “Isn’t it great? You know, to know that we’ll all be able to breastfeed?” She looked at my childlike face all lit up like a Christmas tree, and she said something along the lines of “Yes, well, I don’t think it’s all that straightforward actually”. I can’t remember exactly what she said to be honest, I was too relieved thinking that breastfeeding was going to be all champagne and roses.

The thing is – and yep, you’ve guessed it – for me, it really wasn’t.

I had a ‘normal’ labour (as my husband likes to remind me) of about 15 hours… I even stuck pretty much to my birth plan (I know, can you believe it?!). Only gas and air, got to use the birthing pool, but needed a little ventouse help at the end. It was fine. My baby girl was born and she was healthy. I’d passed New Baby: Stage One with flying colours. Woo-hoo!

Breastfeeding seemed really good to begin with. I remember the crazy lumpy bumpy feeling of my milk coming in, exactly when they said it would… I remember the home visits from midwives telling me all sorts of techniques to get my little girl to latch properly, trips to the local birthing centre for extra assistance, and even getting the breastfeeding counsellor to come over and help me make sure I was doing everything right. I recall the searing pain of each latch as my boobs grew accustomed to the use they were designed for, but the joy that it seemed to be working and that my baby was gaining weight. All was going well. But then, she decided to cluster feed.

It was November by this point; the days were wet, the nights were drawing in, and I was stuck helplessly to the sofa. This alone was a huge shock that I simply wasn’t prepared for. A year earlier, life couldn’t have been more different. I was training for a half marathon. I went running, went to the gym, I was the lead singer in a band with practice once a week and gigs at least twice a month, and I worked for myself as a freelance copywriter. I could do whatever-the-frickin-hell I wanted, when I wanted. Life was good, busy… selfishly all mine. Fast forward a year later, however, and my newly enlarged behind was stuck to the sofa for hours on end as my burning bosoms tried to nourish my child – who still, for the record, felt like a complete stranger to me. All I could do was sit, eat biscuits (and I ate a LOT of them) and watch crappy daytime TV.

As the exhaustion truly set in and my baby literally wanted to suck the life out of me, the reality that this was my lot – being a mum, forever – hit me like a ton of bricks. I crumbled. The weeks that followed are a blur to be honest; a haze of tears, leaky nipples, 3am feeds and guilt. I remember two friends coming to visit, and one of them said to me “You look really well!” I knew this was total bollocks, and I recall the cynical voice inside my head scoffing “yeah, right!” (This friend has since admitted that I looked bloody awful but that she didn’t know what else to say!)

For a few weeks, several people gently tried to get me to switch to the bottle. My mum was one of them. “I could never feed any of you for very long. I just didn’t have the supply,” she said. I only half listened. ‘Everyone can breastfeed with the right support,’ I thought. ‘I just need to try harder.’

My husband, looking at the pitiful tear-stained blob I’d become, tried to encourage me to stop too. “It’s ok, babe. Your mum didn’t breastfeed you, and you turned out ok! If you want to stop, stop.” But all I could think was, ‘everyone can breastfeed with the right support. I’m just not trying hard enough. I need to work harder to be a good mum.’ Cue more tears, more frantic Google searching for new ideas to build my supply, and Downton Abbey binge-watching sessions punctuated by the clunk-squirt of an electric breast pump.

I think the breaking point came one dark winter weekday when my little girl decided to latch on at 4pm and not give me a break until about 10 o’clock at night. I kid you not. Yes, there were a couple of breaks for loo trips, nappy changes and the like, but all she wanted was to suckle. I completely lost it. “I’m so tired!”, I sobbed to my husband. “I can’t do this anymore!” “Then stop!” he replied. “Just stop, we’ll switch to formula, it’s absolutely fine!” This time, I listened.

And so I set a deadline. Christmas would be it. I would stop breastfeeding at Christmas.

And I did. It was the best decision I ever made.

Now, I was no longer stuck to my baby on the sofa. Now, my husband, my mum, my dad, my sister, my friends – they could all help out too. Now, I could pass the 3am feed (the one that really broke me) to my husband, and get some sleep. And when I did feed her, my baby was no longer hidden away under my boob, but right there in my arms, and I could look into her beautiful little blue eyes as she suckled on the bottle. Ironically, the fog cleared, the oxytocin started to flow, and I started, little by little, to fall in love with her.

As I look back, I don’t regret my decision one bit – and neither do I regret the experience. It helped me grow from a child into a woman, and enabled me to understand once and for all that life is not black and white, but shades of grey.

What’s more, I learned the hard way that it simply isn’t true that “everyone can breastfeed with the right support”. Yes, maybe my body was capable of feeding her. But my mind wasn’t – and that’s something I wasn’t prepared for at all. Breastfeeding wasn’t right for me. And that was and is absolutely, perfectly, totally ok.

So to any new mums who are going through anything similar, I would say: listen to your gut instinct – it’s telling you the right thing to do. If you can breastfeed and you want to, then you go for it. But if it’s starting to take its toll, and you want to stop… then STOP. It’s fine. Whatever you choose, your little one will thrive. And when you start being kind to yourself, then you will thrive, too.

KT Mag

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