As I sit down with my baby, I breathe a sigh of relief and of peace. It’s in these moments, where nothing else seems to matter. There is a beautiful calm-filled happiness that comes over me when I am breastfeeding.
Now, as a mom of two, I can settle in and enjoy these special experiences with my children.
But, while breastfeeding is often portrayed as inherently easy and natural—for me, it started quite literally the opposite: painful and challenging.
From a young age, breastfeeding was something I knew I wanted and hoped to experience once I became a mother. After learning I was pregnant with my first son, I remember diving headfirst into all things baby related.
There are countless books and guides on pregnancy, labor, birth, baby gear, baby sleep and so on—but in my nine—almost ten months—of pregnancy, I didn’t come across one “how-to” on breastfeeding.
It wasn’t something I thought twice about because I assumed that it was this effortless, innate thing and that, as soon as my baby was born, he or she would latch instantly and we would go on to feed happily ever after.
No one ever told me I would have to work so hard to feed my baby.
In the hours following birth, I was visited by the hospital lactation consultant for a quick, 10-minute visit that felt more like 10 seconds. It was in that first visit where she checked to see how I was feeding and asked if I needed any help or instruction. With my breast in one hand and my baby’s head in the other, she told me I had a “blessed and healthy supply of colostrum.”
And that was it. Off she left, leaving me feeling helpless and still unsure of what I was doing. Wasn’t this supposed to just come to me now?
I already had pain with latching, along with sore, chapped nipples to go with it. I would shudder at that two-hour mark knowing my baby would need to eat again, and I would have to experience that oh-so-unnatural feeling.
This wasn’t just mere discomfort: it was entire body-clenching pain.
It was so incredibly painful that I could not fathom how such a teeny tiny baby could inflict such unbelievable discomfort.
My breast and my nipples were so sore that no amount of magical nipple butter could help. I was confused and felt defeated, scared, sad. An endless bout of emotions that were met with a flood of tears. As the hours passed on that first day post birth, my son had yet to pass any urine: milestone hospitals look for and something that must happen before you can take your baby home.
As the time continued to pass without a wet diaper, my anxiety continued to grow.
The nurses on the postpartum and recovery floor labeled me “failure to feed:” a term I don’t like to mention often because the sting of those words is sadly something I will never forget and I still feel to this day.
Failure already? My baby was just born!
I was so angry at the expectation that new mothers should learn something that was so brand new and foreign so quickly. I was told I had no choice but to feed my son with donor milk or formula. At that moment, I did feel like a complete failure—after all, I couldn’t provide what my baby needed.
I turned to the donor milk option and, although grateful, felt grief that my son was drinking someone else’s milk. In the hours that followed drinking what seemed like an endless amount of donor milk, my son still hadn’t urinated.
I thought: “Okay—maybe it’s not me after all.”
I received a second visit from the lactation consultant and although she might have been the last person I wanted to see, she was determined, like myself, to get that first pee from my babe and to set me up with the tools I needed to confidently breastfeed.
She denied my “failure” label the nurses gave me and promised I would get used to it, and eventually it would become second nature.
At this point I felt embarrassed for needing the extra consultant time—but knew having my own personal breastfeeding cheerleader was exactly what I needed.
I’ve always had a strong will and determination when it came to anything I put my mind to—and breastfeeding was no different. The lactation consultant was right, I was gifted with a healthy supply, and I knew it was mind over matter in these early days of learning.
The consultant soon suggested I try a nipple shield, which became the exact tool I needed to successfully begin my breastfeeding journey. The shield took away all the pain and allowed my baby to feed freely and allowed me to relax. The nipple shield was an absolute gift and allowed my love for breastfeeding to truly begin.
I can say with utmost certainty I would not have had success without the nipple shield—and without the amazing consultant who not only boosted my confidence but stayed in my room for hours when I asked her to. Eventually, my little boy made his first pee with the help of a belly massage from the hospital pediatrician, and we were released to go home.
It was one month post-birth when I felt it truly became that effortless, beautiful experience I’d always hoped and imagined it would be.
In the chaos of early motherhood and trying to figure out how to care for a new little human, breastfeeding became the one constant that I could count on.
When everything else might have had a question mark—sleep and nap schedules, development milestones, my own healing and transformation—feeding my baby was a constant. My baby flourished and my confidence soared—even without the nipple shield.
I had never felt more proud and more powerful than in those early months knowing I was the sole source of my baby’s nutrition and he was so rapidly gaining weight from what my body was providing him.
I wonder what the nurses would have thought about my “failure to feed” rating when my baby’s weight skyrocketed in his first month of life. Our pediatrician looked at me dumbfounded when I told him about those hurtful words. He said: “You might be many things but failure to feed is surely not one of them.”
I did it! I worked through the agony—and I came through to the other side better than I could have ever imagined. Conquering that major hurdle gave me this super-mom confidence from there on. I absolutely believe it made me the best mom I could be because mentally, I was so proud of myself and truly felt like I could do anything.
I went on to breastfeed my son for almost two whole years and it is something I am so very proud of. It is something I love so deeply and connected me to him in a way I find hard to put into words.
When I became pregnant with my second son, I was told I would have to eventually wean my older son off my milk due to contraction risks of the new growing fetus. This filled me with major anxiety and was something I dreaded and cried about throughout those early weeks of pregnancy.
I turned to every source imaginable to find the “perfect” way to gently wean but nothing seemed perfect and it was something I didn’t want to do at all. As my pregnancy progressed, my older son became less and less interested in breastfeeding and to my delight, weaned himself. I’ve read that many mothers know when the “last time” is and never forget that day, time—but I was never sure when the last time would be…. until it was.
My son drank for the last time somewhere in his 22nd month of life and never asked for my milk ever again. As much as it was bittersweet, I felt so lucky to not have to go through any kind of emotional or physical struggle with weaning.
As I approached my due date with baby boy number two, I was weary of what the next journey with breastfeeding would look like. I had faith I could do it again but what if I couldn’t? What if it was painful again?
These were all things that filled me with worry leading up to birth. I didn’t assume anything and went into this second experience with confidence but also a healthy fear of the unknown.
To my delight, my second son took to my breast right away.. but it still wasn’t easy-peasy for me. There it was, that all too familiar, unpleasant agony that came with those first few weeks postpartum. I was constantly bombarded with questions of confusion from friends and loved ones, “But how could you be in pain? You breastfed before! You know what you’re doing!”
I now know it won’t matter how many babies I have, the initial pain is maybe just something personal to me and my experiences. However, I also now know the beauty and joy of breastfeeding does exist on the other side of those painful beginnings.
My experience with my second son was less of an initial hurdle since I was more prepared this time and now, several months in, it’s just as fulfilling and beautiful as I remember.
With my first, I didn’t put any expectations of time on myself and as each month passed, I just continued to cheer myself on and wondered where the next month would take us. I didn’t want to set a goal that could potentially be met with disappointment if it didn’t work out. I am approaching my second feeding journey the same way.
My son is now just about five months, and he is doing great but will he make it to 22 months? I can’t be sure. However long we last, I am forever proud of myself.
The biggest piece of advice I have for an expecting mother is to go into breastfeeding open-minded and to know that it’s okay if it is not this natural, easy experience off the bat.
Breastfeeding is so incredibly hard, and more grace needs to be given to mothers who are learning and trying to figure it all out—all while recovering from pregnancy and adjusting to this significant life transition.
If you can, try to look past the pain and seek solutions, tools and expert help, if breastfeeding is something you want for yourself and your baby. While pumping and supplementing with formula or not breastfeeding at all is a personal choice for all mothers, for those who really want to nurse their babies, there is support available to help.
Breastfeeding is something I hold so sacred to my motherhood experience. It provides my baby and I with uninterrupted—well, now sometimes toddler interrupted—moments of peace and tranquility. These are my special moments to bond, to let go of anything that is otherwise plaguing me in life, to really breathe, and to take in these ever-fleeting days I know I will so truly miss when they are gone.
