Bonding and breastfeeding? Bollocks.

Once you have transversed the politics of pregnancy, you might imagine that the world can finally mind its own business and leave you to your body in peace.  Or at least that was my naive expectation.  But as soon as your little bundle enters the world the question will be how you plan to feed him/her.  Yes, this will be on the final exam and here’s a hint: bottle is the wrong answer.  And the word ‘formula’ is an instant fail. 

Breast is best.  Breastfeeding is free and saves you the trouble of preparing bottles.  It’s good for baby in so many ways, both for nutrition and immunity now and to set him up for future good health.  Photos around the maternity wards instill a feeling of warmth around the whole enterprise, showing glowing mums smiling at peaceful, content infants.  And if that hasn’t sold it to you yet, they say it’ll burn that preggo fat. 

Well, I was all ready to sign on the dotted line.  When tragedy struck and the boys weren’t able to start breastfeeding straight away, I decided not give up.  I would pump and be ready for when they were ready.  The hours of driving between Colchester and Norwich were passed with Thom and I listening to the thumping, electric drone of a portable breast pump.  Had giving birth in a room filled with 20 or 30 strangers not already robbed me of any self-consciousness, motoring past white vans and lorries with a boob being sucked into a machine certainly would have. 

Formula was an essential for our boys and for all babies on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  And even after Ethan came home, between my stress levels and Ethan’s low weight, we needed formula, at least as a top up for my lagging milk production.  Despite the rocky road that led to the necessity of formula for us, we found that no health professional who tripped across our path would offer any advice to help us use formula.  The stock line was that breastfeeding was THE way.  Formula was shunned like the very excretion of Satan’s mother herself.  Even my Tesco Clubcard points and Boots Advantage Card points were refused against the purchase of formula.  Government policy, I was told, to encourage breastfeeding.  It was like I wasn’t buying baby SMA, but baby SMAck.  Maybe not illegal, but certainly frowned upon.  

Here’s something I didn’t realise before but is an astounding part of breastfeeding:  It is totally dependant on a calm state of mind.  I would class myself as a big believer in the link between body and mind, but I expected that being calm would merely help.  How wrong I was.  I discovered that being stressed is like turning the milk tap off.  I was advised to try and look at photos of the boys when pumping to get the milk flowing.  But seeing their little bodies all wired up to medical gear made me cry and seeing no milk at the end of pumping session made it worse.  As the days went on and Noah’s condition deteriorated, I found that thinking of Ethan allowed some milk production, but the moment my mind drifted to how Noah was doing, it stopped.  I discovered that there was only one thing for it – distraction.  So I’d set myself up with a few magazines, an array of snacks and the TV remote before settling in to battle with the boobs. 

the difficult days of hospitals and pumping

All those endless hours of pumping didn’t inspire belief that I could actually make milk.  I was told that pumping every few hours, even through the night, would soon establish a supply.  But even with distraction techniques, I was disheartened by the few measly drops that trickled into the bottles even after hours of pumping. 

But my experience is thankfully different from most new mothers, who might find that breastfeeding is easily established.  When we got Ethan home, the milk soon arrived in response to feeding him on demand.  And yet, the idyllic picture of mother and child, enveloped in mutual love and joy while breastfeeding continues to allude me. 

Ethan is a cute little boob-monster, don’t get me wrong.  We have lots of fun and cuddly times together in and around feedings.  But these are interspersed with lots of other times filled with worry, frustration and exhaustion. 

post-feed chill out face

The worry is mine.  Is he getting enough?  Have I eaten something that’s making him fussy?  Is he crying and pulling away because I’m doing something wrong?  The frustration is often his.  Maybe when he’s not getting enough.  Maybe when he’s getting too much.  Maybe when he wishes he could just suck without the bother of milk invading his mouth.  

He growls and flails his little fists at me, latched on harder than a barnacle on a bow, but pulling away in baby-rage, taking my nipple with him.   I sit in shock (and pain) at his behaviour.  Usually around 4am, I begin to think, ‘I’ve allowed you unrestricted access to my breasts, all day and all night, and you are the frustrated one?’  But that’s the tough world of being a baby, I guess.  It’s either absolute heaven, when you’re getting all you want right on time, or absolute torture, when mom just can’t fathom what the hell you’re asking for.  The tough world of being mom is about developing a tough skin, both metaphorically as well as physically.  

Even though my introduction to breastfeeding has been unusual and tougher than some, but I’ve also discovered that I might not be alone in my ambivalence about breastfeeding.  Which is handy because I was starting to feel like a bad mum.  The Internet has helped me feel like less of a monster for surviving feeds by playing tetris and online shopping (I can't even begin fathom how women ever survived the hours of breastfeeding before television).  Through the internet, I found other women who love their babies but loathe the breastfeeding.  Click here to read another tough mamma's blog about the battle of the boobies 

The idea that I might bond with anyone, baby or not, by letting him try to remove my nipple over the course of six months with hoover-like suction power is ludicrous.  If, like me, you are struggling on with it, good for you.