***Note: I’m not a physician or lactation consultant or any type of healthcare professional. This post is meant to encourage those under the supervision of a professional :)

The day my son was born the hospital made a mistake and he had to be taken to the NICU, once there he wasn’t allowed to leave for 48 hours while they waited on a blood culture test to come back. Right after his birth I had about ten minutes to try to nurse him, and of course neither of us had any idea what we were doing. While he was in the NICU I casually tried to nurse him the first day with the help of a few different LC’s the hospital provided, but it was new and stressful and he wasn’t ready. I just kind of wanted to use that time with him to snuggle and stare at him and get used to all of his features, without the stress of three people watching me struggle to try to feed him. Then the second day I was informed that even if his blood test came back okay, if he wasn’t having enough wet diapers each day I still wouldn’t be able to take him home. I was devastated. I had no idea they were going to do that, and he still wasn’t into trying to nurse. So I borrowed a pump from the hospital and set alarms and pumped like a mad woman. The first few times hardly anything came out, and then the floodgates opened and I was a one-woman milk factory. So I bottle fed him ounces and ounces of pumped colostrum until they finally decided he’d had enough wet diapers I could take him home.

Once we were home I still tried here and there to breastfeed him, but it was so painful and he had no interest. He would start to breathe funny and almost hyperventilate and then cry, so I just pumped. I started seeing a free lactation consultant through a local nonprofit and she was extremely nice, but I could tell she didn’t understand why I kept coming back and saying I was struggling. Feeding him was almost a chore. I had to bring a thermos of hot water with me everywhere so I could stick the bags of milk in it, then I’d have to wash the bottle and carefully put it away for the next meal. I envied women who could just sit in their car and nurse their baby while out running errands. I wanted that so badly. I didn’t know why it wasn’t happening and neither did my LC, but I kept trying. It hurt like nothing has ever hurt before, and they say it’s not supposed to, and my LC acted like there was no reason for it to, but it did. But we kept going! And then one day I didn’t have to fight him on it, and one day it wasn’t such a struggle, and one day it stopped hurting. It was about a month after he was born when it stopped being such a struggle, and now he’s almost five months old and we just have our routine. It’s absolutely amazing and if you are in the same boat as I was, I promise if there isn’t truly something wrong, it will get better. The pain will go away. The uncertainty will go away. I’m finally one of those mom’s who can feed her baby while she’s out and about and it’s fantastic.

(This photo was taken the first time I got to feed him in the car.)