I have to be honest and say that one of the most stressful parts of being a new mother for me was breastfeeding. I failed spectacularly, not once, not twice, not three times, but all four times I tried. I feel I gave it my best shot and with each attempt my failure was even more spectacular then the time before. "Breast is Best" is thrown at the expectant mother nearly from the moment you pee on a stick and get a positive. I still know that breastfeeding is the best natural way to feed a baby, but I've also come to grips that there is formula and baby bottles for a reason and my babies were all healthy thanks mostly to baby formula.
Breastfeeding isn't easy and it comes with a fair share of tears and pain. When my fourth child was two months old, I had resigned myself to breastfeeding failure once again. I had just gotten over a nasty bout of mastitis that had brought me to tears and turned my struggling milk supply into virtual nothingness. I got out the formula and baby bottles and resigned myself to feeding my child the best way I knew how and it was working just fine. A couple months after my baby was fully weaned, I noticed a very painful area on my left breast with a small (pea size) lump in the center. I tried to massage the area to relieve the pain, and much to my surprise I was expressing milk. Great... when I wanted to breastfeed, my breasts wouldn't make milk, and now that I've decided I'm done, they won't stop! The pain felt very similar to the mastitis I had gotten over 2-3 months earlier, so I figured I was coming down with another infection. I watched for redness and fever, which never developed and gradually, over the period of a couple of months, the pain went away, for the most part, but the lump remained. I monitored the lump for a couple more months and it shrank down to the point where I could barely feel it. Two months later, I noticed the lump was back, so I monitored it, and realized it had grown back to it's original size. By this time, my baby was 10 months old, and I promised myself if this hadn't resolved by her first birthday I would have a doctor check it out. I was pretty sure my postpartum hormones were still causing my body to be all out of whack and I had probably developed some sort of hormone driven cyst.
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Hi Heather - Melissa E. from BSU IV - I just figured out through fb that you've been having health issues - I'm a little out of touch I guess... just read through your entire blog - you are a great writer! I'm commenting on this post as it made me laugh! I am breast feeding our 7 week old and I have had to "supplement" since I went home from the hospital! (I didn't have enough at the hospital either, but she just starved while we were there - LOL) Maybe I should be more truthful and say I am formula feeding and supplementing with the breast! Breastfeeding is probably one of the few things of which I would say "To each her own, no one can judge how a woman feeds her infant" It is so intensely personal, and to me, elusive. Truely one of the hardest things I've ever tried to be successful at. Women who have, as my mom friend says, enough milk for the county, might not understand that, but I have a feeling you can relate.
ReplyDeleteTake care - hi to Jay from me