While nursing my 13 month old Bean to sleep this evening,  it occurred to me that I am now the Mama of a toddler. Such a seemingly impossible fact has me in a contemplative mood.  Motherhood is nothing like my pre-Mama self imagined it would be–all natural childbirth culminating in my son crawling up onto my breast to nurse as the milk flowed with midwives and Daddy stand beaming down, newborn baby hanging out sublimely in a bouncer on my desk as I typed my dissertation ( pausing to nurse every two hours, of course) or wearing my little Bean in a sling around the house while I got things done.  Oh no.  I was in for a surprise.  My Bean has been doing things his own way since the first contraction!  Mama-hood, for me, began with a 35 hour labor. Now, I’ll be honest, this number seems to get higher every time I talk about the birth.  By his second birthday I’ll be telling people I was in labor for 72 hours but it won’t seem like an exaggeration because it seemed like I was in labor forever.  Three hours of pushing and the kiddo wouldn’t budge.  Last-minute c-section was terrifying and a relief all at the same time.  But, after all was said and done (and the morphine wore off), I looked down at my stubborn little Bean and fell in love.

There were three things that  kept me (partially) sane for the first three weeks of post-partum hell.  The first was that love.  We had made a person and he was lying there, in my arms, alive and real.  Our Bean, who could break out of any swaddle, openly despised any diaper change and liked to fall asleep with his head against my breast like a pillow.  The second was his Daddy, my B who changed every diaper when I couldn’t get out of bed, gave in on co sleeping and got used to me nursing in public–even though everyone in his family (and mine) had been formula fed.  I could never have gotten through it alone.  Finally, there were the lactation consultants at our Birth Center.  I can’t tell you how many times I called them up, often in the middle of the night, with a screaming baby with latching issues.  These women came to my home, opened up the BC on a Sunday so we could come in and always came to the phone.  Each time, one of those lovely women calmed me down,  told me I was a good Mama whether I breastfed or not,reminded me that nursing was hard but beautiful and it would get better.  They often told me the same things–did you try the football hold? Have you managed to nurse him laying down?  Yes, he is getting enough, it is normal for him to nurse for two hours straight, yes, you can do this but it is ok if you want to stop.  It wasn’t what they said, it was having someone to talk to, to reassure me that it was all worth it.  This post is dedicated to those women.

Post-partum care, in general, is nearly nonexistent in this country.  Doulas are not covered by most insurance companies.  Our health care system, media and educational resources–which focus so much attention on the dangers to women and fetuses during pregnancy and work so hard to ‘control’ the birth itself, are shameful in their neglect of the mother and baby pair post-partum–particularly in the area of lactation support.  Although we were lucky enough to have a baby in a hospital with excellent lactation support and policies that support breastfeeding, many American women are not so lucky.  We were even luckier that our insurance covered the midwifery service at our BC because it includes post partum lactation support until weaning.  Insurance companies should be required to cover lactation support.  Why?  I could use statistics–rates of breastfeeding to a year old for the past ten years (it has risen from 12% to 25 since 2001 according to the CDC but 25% is nothing to brag about) or cite the WHO on the benefits of breastfeeding but, chances are if you are reading this, you know much of this already. Instead, I want to tell you our breastfeeding story.

Nursing, something I wanted so badly to do and love, started out as hell.  I was exhausted after what amounted to a vaginal birth + c-section. I had hemorrhaged during the surgery so I was anemic.  My body was so busy trying to  repair itself that it was not putting anything into lactating. My milk simply was not coming in as it should.  To top it all off, my breasts were so swollen from the surgery that my nipples were flat and the poor Bean couldn’t get a latch.  The lactation nurses and RNs in our Mama-baby ward were amazing. They came in every two hours to help me get him latched with a nipple shield.  We rented a breast pump and the hell got worse.  The doctor put us on a schedule:  nurse the baby, pump, sleep for 1.5 hours and repeat.  The idea was to get my body to speed up milk production by tricking it into thinking I had suddenly had twins.  It worked but it was overwhelming. Exhaustion is an understatement.  I was wiped out.  After six days in the hospital and breaking down into tears in front of our FP at least twice, we went home armed only with a poop/pee chart, instructions from the lactation nurse and a sample case of the Enfamil we had already had to use as a supplement when our Bean became jaundiced. Were it not for the lactation consultants, he would have been on the bottle for good at three weeks.

Going home was scarier than the c-section. Here we were, with this teeny tiny human that we were now responsible for keeping alive.  He screamed all night that first night.  We didn’t have a clue what to do.  I called the BC and they got us through the night and to our home visit the next day.  I went in for individual lactation support and learned nursing positions, how to tell if he was swallowing and how to wean him off the shield.  More importantly, however, I went to Baby Clinic.  Baby Clinic became the anchor in my week. Every Tuesday Mamas can come in and get their babes weighed and talk about any concerns to a lactation consultant.  Even more important than that, they talk to each other.  I came to my first baby clinic in the midst of the onset of post partum depression. I felt like a horrible Mama. I felt like an utter failure.  I felt like my body had failed to birth him and now I was failing to feed him.  I sat there among a throng of Mamas with babies 3-4 months old. Those babies were beautiful–round and chubby and giggly; my baby seemed scrawny. He was crying and my nursing attempts were awkward and not always successful.  I was a mess. I was stressed and beating myself up and had no confidence in my ability to feed my son, let alone raise him. The other Mamas oohed and awed over my Bean and told me he was adorable.  One woman offered me the rocking chair with a smile.  Another gave me some pillows.   Another said it would get better–she knew because she’d been through it.

It did get better.  After it got worse.  We finger-fed him using a syringe and had to supplement with  more formula. At three weeks old our Bean preferred to drink pumped milk out of a bottle. Because nursing was a struggle that seemed to end with all of us in tears almost every time, I started to prefer it as well. My pp depression really kicked in and I just felt like I couldn’t do it. I was overwhelmed, B and I  talked about switching to formula. I told one of our LCs that I was done. I felt like all I did was try to nurse and fail, pump and repeat–with no time in between to bond with my son.  I found myself dreading the time he would wake up because nursing was so physically and emotionally painful.  I asked for advice to dry up and she gave it to me.  She did warn that I not stop pumping cold turkey to avoid engorgement.  “Can I still come to baby clinic?” I asked.  “Well, of course you can!”   I was defeated and I felt horrible.  I thought, making the decision, that I would be relieved. Instead, I was devastated.   We went out to dinner with family and they asked how nursing was going. I felt broken.  I had no words. After dinner we went home and I pumped once.  B gave our  little Bean a bath. When he handed him to me he was so calm and alert. He nestled into my arms, skin to skin, and instantly began rooting. He didn’t want a bottle; he wanted to nurse. B and I looked at each other and I thought–might as well do it one last time. We set up the mountain of pillows I needed to nurse back then, turned the lights down low and got into bed.  Our little Bean turned his head, opened his mouth up wide,  latched perfectly onto the breast and began to nurse.  I was astonished and I had an epiphany:  if this three week old baby could figure out his nipple confusion, I could meet him halfway and keep up.  We could do this.

I went to Baby Clinic every week.  It was the hardest work thing I ever did but, we got our Bean off the shield, I got treatment for my depression, we began to cosleep so I could nurse him lying down and we figured out how to latch–all due to the postpartum care we received at the BC.  We learned to nurse together.  Some of the Mamas at Baby Clinic have become my best friends. Our babies play together at least once a week.  The Birth Center has given me a support group that has made me a better Mama and our Bean the loveliest Aunties he could ask for.  When he was about six months old, a new generation of Mamas came to Baby Clinic with their newborns.  Our group was mostly boys but these were all girls–so tiny and new.  One of the Mamas was having trouble nursing.  Her daughter wouldn’t latch, they had to finger feed and  supplement. She was exhausted.  From my spot on the floor where our Bean was nursing in my lap, I told her my story. She came to Baby Clinic every week and her daughter is chubby and strong and breastfed.

The circle of support at the Birth Center is indispensable to the health and well being of Mamas and babies postpartum.  The health issues that are affecting this generation of kids–especially obesity and diabetes, can be prevented through the practice of encouraging mothers to breastfeed their babies and helping them to do it.  It is not enough to say “breastmilk is best”.  Everyone knows this.  We have to give women and families the support they need to get through the hardest part–the beginning. The first weeks after birth are the most difficult. In a world where the only representations of babies normally include bottles of formula, giant strollers and cribs–where formula companies send out samples to Mamas in their most vulnerable time in order to get more customers, it is absolutely necessary to provide this kind of support.

My Bean is getting a bit big for Baby Clinic now.  He weighs over 23 pounds and probably wouldn’t fit on the baby scale. Due to work obligations I haven’t been able to make it on Tuesdays for about four months and I miss it.  But I will show up a few more times–not to get him weighed but to check in with our BC family and be a support to the other Mamas who will have similar stories to tell someday.

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