Booby School Dropout

Slate has a great article (with slides!) this week about breastfeeding mothers' rather ambivalent relationships with their breast pumps, a contraption which I happen to know all too intimately.

Like the author, I charged into motherhood with a certain bullheadedness about breastfeeding. Sure, I talked the talk about my lack of expectations. I knew the possible complications. I knew that breastfeeding sometimes took a while to get established, but deep down in my heart, I knew that I could do it. I was a feminist! I was strong! I would persevere and get through any of the normal difficulties. I would birth my baby and he would immediately be put to my breast and know what to do. I wouldn't mind being the one that had to get up for nighttime feedings, and I would take advantage of my workplace's nursing mother's room and put to good use the little manual Avent breastpump that I had received at my baby shower. I was woman and hear me fucking roar. And nurse!

Things didn't quite go as I had planned. Because Harrison was in distress at the moment of his birth, the neonatal team whisked him away to the warming table to stabilize his heart and breath. [Hadn't they read my plan? "I would like to have my son placed on my stomach/chest immediately after delivery."]

Harrison didn't cry for the first minute and all thoughts of bringing him to my breast immediately were gone from my mind as he was suctioned rather vigorously. I trusted that everything was fine: I saw him wiggling. And then, finally, crying. But I was still contracting and being stitched up in my unmentionables and reeling from the rather traumatic ending to what had otherwise been a pretty good labor. I don't know how long it was before Harrison was brought over. Fifteen minutes maybe? Twenty? Nevertheless, I didn't put him to my breast until maybe forty five minutes after his birth.

And when he finally got there, he wanted nothing to do with it.

It was from that very shaky beginning that Harrison was a failed nurser. During the two days at the hospital, he didn't eat a drop. He would either cry or fall asleep. He couldn't latch. He couldn't get comfortable. He squirmed and flailed. He zonked out. He peered. His eyes crossed. He farted. He yawned. He did everything but eat.

The nurses did everything they could to help. The lactation consultant visited twice and stated that she had never seen such a lazy nurser. After 36 hours of not eating, I started worrying that my baby was going to starve to death.

The hospital forgot (?) to circumcise Harrison as they normally would have done on the first full day of our stay. When we asked them about it the morning of our departure on day 2, they had it done immediately, but then informed us that Harrison had to pee before they would let him go. Now we had a dilemma because he hadn't eaten anything since he was in utero and his diapers had been dry all day. We kept trying to get him to nurse, but he continued to refuse. His diaper stayed dry.

Finally, we decided to let him drink a half ounce of sugar water from a bottle, just so we'd be able to take him home. He drank the water immediately and peed an hour or so later. We were free!

Harrison was starving and screamed bloody murder that first night home. He continued to refuse to nurse. Meanwhile, I needed to pump to stimulate my milk production. We, of course, hadn't gotten anything ready at home for bottle feeding. We didn't have any bottles sterilized or the pump out of the package. Valerie saved my life by getting the bottles and pump ready for me and giving me a Cliff's notes version of the directions on how to use it. We decided to give Harrison the little bit of colostrum that I was able to pump and supplement that with formula. Once he got something to eat, he calmed down and went to sleep.

Over the next few weeks, this pattern continued: Harrison refused to nurse, I was forced to pump or explode. We embarked on an intensive breastfeeding training regimen we called "Boob School". We talked to the lactation consultatant. We tried using a nipple shield. We tried using a breastmilk-filled medicine dropper positioned near my nipple so that he'd associate my boobs with milk. I pumped and then popped my nipple in his mouth with milk squirting out.

He didn't get it.

In the meantime, we started feeding him the pumped milk out of a bottle.

Aside from Harrison's surgery, this was the hardest time I have ever had as a parent. I cried every two hours, every time Harrison tried and failed to nurse. I cried while I pumped. I cried when I fed Harrison from the bottle. I cried while Doug fed Harrison from the bottle. I felt like I spent all my time either expressing milk or feeding Harrison, but I couldn't do those two things at the same time. I felt like a huge failure and a terrible mother. I felt totally rejected.

Doug researched our problem on the internet and found lots of women who had had the same exact experience. Some of their flunkie babies had "Ah-ha!" moments at 4 or 5 weeks where they finally "got" it, but most of the mothers had given up. A very small percentage of them had found full-time pumping as a solution.

After three weeks of Boob School, I finally made the decision to give up on direct breastfeeding and give myself over to full-time pumping. For the most part, I felt that a huge weight was lifted because we weren't going to have to fight with Harrison every few hours, which meant I wouldn't have to cry every few hours.

Full-time pumping was quite successful. I had a great supply and pumping after I went back to work was easy and fast. At my most productive I could express 5 ounces from each breast in about 15 minutes. In some ways, pumping was easier on me because Doug was able to participate in Harrison's feedings.

I stuck with full time pumping for about 5 and a half months, and with my freezer stocks, Harrison had breastmilk through 6 months. I made the decision to stop when I developed a repetitive motion injury in my hand from using the pump and when I basically just got too lazy to keep doing it.

Still, deciding to quit breastfeeding was hard. Again I felt overcome with guilt. Ashley said, "He will be fine and he will not care" and she was right. When Harrison went to daycare in mid November 2004, we switched over to formula.

So that's my breastfeeding story. I am still trying to get to the point where I am at peace with the way things turned out. It's hard to move past it because Doug and I do plan to have another child and I live in a bit of fear over what will happen with the next baby. I'm not sure if there's any one party or factor to blame: the hospital? Me? Harrison? The birth? The intensive suctioning after he was born?

Getting back to the Slate article about pumps, I can say that pumping was very easy for me. Maybe it was too easy. Maybe if pumping had not been so easy, I would have tried harder with the direct breastfeeding. But maybe without the ease of the pump, I still would have given up on breastfeeding altogether and given him formula from the beginning.

And the bottom line is that no matter what, Harrison would have been fine. He would have been healthy and well-fed and happy. And I'm learning to accept that.