My whole pregnancy I was very adamant about breastfeeding. I was excited and passionate and couldn’t wait to have my baby so I could breastfeed her and provide her with the antibodies and immune system support from my milk. There is something POWERFUL about feeding your child from your body, and I couldn’t wait.

Fast forward to May 3rd, I was induced at 37 weeks on the dot due to blood pressure. I had a smooth & easy vaginal delivery. I wanted to breastfeed immediately after birth. My daughter had issues latching so they gave me a nipple shield. Problem with the nipple shield was she would latch, but then she wouldn’t start sucking and then she’d get mad that milk wasn’t coming out. So they gave us sugar water, and we’d have her latch to the nipple shield and then squirt the sugar water in her mouth and she’d start sucking. I fed her every 2 hours.

Day 2 in the hospital we noticed she was really shakey. We told our nurse and she decided to test her blood sugar. It was 32 (it’s supposed to be AT LEAST 40) and it was 63 when she was born so it was obviously very low. This indicated that she wasn’t really eating enough so we gave her formula. I really did NOT want to do this. I was so stubborn on breastfeeding exclusively and it broke my heart to have to supplement with formula. But an hour after eating about half an oz of formula, her blood sugar was back up to 63.

A nurse examined by breasts and found that I was not producing any colostrum. They said it was probably because I was only 37 weeks, and my body wasn’t ready to have a baby, therefore it wasn’t ready to produce much of anything. The guilt I felt was insane. For a whole day I was “feeding my daughter” and she was getting little to no colostrum at all. She was going hungry for a whole day and I didn’t know.

The nurses told me to start pumping when I got home to help my milk come in. I pumped the day we got home and got roughly an ounce of colostrum. Meanwhile we were supplementing her with formula. The next day I woke up and my boobs hurt SO BAD. They were SO full and they were leaking everywhere. I pumped about 4oz out of each breast. I tried to nurse her but it was so hard. She wouldn’t latch without the nipple shield, and when she did latch for some reason she would NOT start sucking. Then she would get mad and start screaming and we’d do it for about an hour before I was finally so overwhelmed that I ended up giving her a bottle.

So my idea was to just pump every 2 hours every day and bottle feed her beastmilk, and try to get her to latch at least once a day just for the bonding experience. Mind you post-partum depression hit me like a ton of bricks after we left the hospital. I was (and still am, but learning to cope) sad all the time and had little motivation to do anything. PPD is a bitch you guys. I felt like everything in my life was wrong. I wasn’t happy, and I felt like something was wrong with me for feeling that way. “I just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, how could I not be happy? She deserves a mom who is happy, I’m a bad mom for feeling sad.” That’s how I felt all the time. I also wondered if I loved her enough, felt like maybe I wasn’t connected to her, I felt like we weren’t bonding. All of these emotions on top of the struggle to breastfeed was weighing down on me hard.

Like I said, I had no motivation for anything. I knew I needed to be pumping about every 2-3 hours to keep my supply up. All I wanted to do was lay in bed with the baby and cry. I’d say “I’ll pump later” and only pumped about once a day, some days I didn’t pump at all.

Let me say, breastfeeding is HARD. I applaud mothers who breastfeed. It is easier for some, but for me it was so difficult. I kept wondering if she was eating enough, wondering how many ounces she was eating off the breast, wondering if she was full, wondering if she was underfed. It was stressful, but I kept trying. At the end of every feeding I ended up giving her a bottle.

I hated myself, I hated my body. I felt like we had failed her. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. The most heartbreaking thing was watching my daughter fuss and cry and get frustrated on the breast, but then as soon as I stuck a bottle in her mouth, she was calm and content. I hated that my body couldn’t calm her the way the bottle did.

Eventually I realized I was drying out, and I got a burst of motivation. I started power-pumping twice a day and pumping every time my daughter ate. I did that for about 4 days and got maybe an ounce each time. Eventually my boobs got so sore and I started getting so frustrated with my pump, and I was getting less and less let down after stimulation phases.

I gave up. It is my own bare fault that I lost my supply. I didn’t pump as much as I should have. I failed my daughter and I know it. I have about 10oz of breastmilk at most stored in the freezer. I’m stalling on giving it to my daughter because i’m afraid for it to be gone, I’m afraid to have nothing left.

My daughter was 7lbs at birth. At her first pediatricians appt. she was 6lbs 9oz. Over time i worried she wasn’t gaining enough. I worried that formula wouldn’t help her grow as much as breastmilk. I felt like I was stunting her growth by not breastfeeding. At her WIC appointment last week she weighed 7lbs 11oz. Today at her pediatrician’s appt. she was 8lbs 3oz.

And I am so relieved. My baby is GROWING. She is healthy and she is thriving. She is over a pound past her birth weight and she is not yet a month old. I finally feel like I’m doing something right.

Yes, breast is best. Breast is healthiest. Breast is better for baby in the long run. But on formula, my daughter still gets full. She gets milk drunk. She has plenty of wet and soiled diapers. On formula, my daughter is FED.

I will always cling to the times I fed her from the breast. I will always miss the feeling of relief and weight lifted off my shoulders when she’d latch to the breast and start eating. It was an indescribable feeling and I will always cling to it. It breaks my heart every time she turns her head towards my chest and opens her mouth, I know she wants to breastfeed. And I am jealous of every single breastfeeding mom in the world. I feel like every mom who breastfeeds is a better mom than me. I’m still struggling with the guilt, but I find comfort in knowing that my child is NOT starving. She is healthy and taken care of. She doesn’t know the difference between formula and breastmilk. All she knows is the difference between hungry and full. I satisfy her need to eat and that is ALL that matters.

FED IS BEST.

Pictures of my baby so we don’t get lost.💗

this last one is her at the appointment today after we found at she was 8lbs 3oz!!