All the way through my pregnancy with Pea I was adamant that I was going to breastfeed. I just assumed that I would be able to and never once thought it would be difficult, after all, it's the most natural thing in the world, right?
How very wrong I was. My labour was quite traumatic and I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. Big mistake. They checked that Pea was latching on and feeding OK and off I went (at 1am!). By the middle of the next day I was in pain so I did a bit of googling, I also watched videos on YouTube and set about trying to improve our positioning. The next day our lovely midwife stayed round for an hour trying to help me as the pain was worsening and cracks were starting to develop on my nipples.
When Pea was 3 days old we went to Baby Café, I was welcomed with open arms and a midwife spent an hour with me checking my latch and positioning. Everyone told me that our latch looked textbook but that there was obviously something wrong as my nipple was shaped like a lipstick, white tipped and very painful after every feed. I was also getting random stabbing pains in my nipples for about 15minutes after each feed. I was becoming very disheartened and the pain was taking over everything.
Two days later I was told that they wanted to do a couple of extra visits with us as Pea wasn't gaining weight. I was beginning to feel like a failure.
Over the next 2 weeks I cried more tears than I ever thought possible, I was in unbearable pain and dreaded my beautiful baby waking up as I knew she'd want a feed, I would be in floods of tears whilst feeding her, my nipples were blistered, mangled and bloody, both of them had huge cracks and I couldn't take any more. During a feed I was in so much pain, I was exhausted, I felt like the worst mum in the world for not being able to feed my baby and I screamed, screamed for my partner to get her away from me, I could release her latch and I needed her off of me. Unfortunately he also couldn't release her latch, it took about 5 minutes. To an outsider it would have looked like carnage in our living room, I was sobbing on one sofa, Pea was screaming in the arms of her Dad, who was also crying as he didn't know what to do.
In the end he went out and bought a tub of formula. For 2 weeks she was solely formula fed, I was expressing at every feed but never got any more than 4oz per day, usually less, so she had that too but every day I felt crappy and useless.
During those 2 weeks of formula feeding my nipples healed (although the cracks are still visible) and I was able to finally spend quality time bonding with my baby, it was amazing. However I still felt that there was something missing. I read a bit about relactation and decided to give it a try.
I didn't tell anyone, not even my partner, I wanted to do it by myself, that way if I 'failed' again nobody needed to know. I planned a duvet day with lots of skin to skin and I gave it a go. She latched on immediately and seemed to be getting something. When she started fussing I took her off and offered her a bottle, she took 4ozs. We did this at every feed.
After 5 days I told my partner what I had been doing. He couldn't understand why I had kept it a secret but I felt that I needed to for my own sanity. We managed to carry on combi-feeding like that until we weaned at 24wks. The only reason I switched to formula only at that point was because she was refusing the breast, thrashing her head around while latched on and would cry until a bottle was offered. I wasn't upset by this though, I felt like she had made the decision herself and that Ineeded to respect that.
Since then I have found out I am expecting again so I wonder what impact, if any, that had on my feeding at that time as it was just before then that I would have fallen pregnant.
I have been asked by my local community health team if I would like to train as a breastfeeding peer support, I could have cried! I'd spent so long feeling like i wasn't doing a very good job and this felt like a real recognition of my achievement. I couldn't have done it without the community health team or Baby Cafe. I'm hoping the training I'll receive will set me up for breastfeeding the second time round. I'm certainly going to go into it with my eyes open this time and I won't be afraid to ask for help.
