The Breastfeeding Diaries: Brianna’s Story

 It
is rare that as adults, we learn something that is completely and
utterly new. Something that we have never done before, have never talked
about, or have never even thought about doing. But motherhood changes
everything. It not only makes you do things you have never done before,
it makes you want to do them. It makes you want to do whatever you can
to give your best to your baby. Breastfeeding, along with natural birth,
was one of the first decisions I knew I could make for my baby and I
wanted to do it right.

I think this is what originally
attracted me to the breastfeeding class I took when I was pregnant with
my daughter. As a first time mom just a short way from her Ph.D., I
wanted to be educated and I wanted to be ready. This was my first
experience learning about the science of breastfeeding, needs of the
nursing mom and baby, breastfeeding positions, how dad can help, what
troubles I might have, and how to advocate for myself as a breastfeeding
mother in the hospital and beyond. We held plastic babies, we said the
words boobs, breasts, and nipples out loud, and we imagined ourselves
replacing the doll with our sweet little babies. But, more than
anything, we learned. I attribute my 24 months of breastfeeding success
to that class.

I
got to nurse my baby within hours of her birth, which is exactly what I
wanted. It was even written in my birth plan, which thank goodness, was
followed to a t. Despite some complications from her birth and with her
health, we got off to a relatively good start. The day we were supposed
to go home, she was diagnosed with jaundice. I thought it was the end
of the world, which of course was an overreaction of a first time mom.
While our experience of seeing our tiny baby in an incubator with bright
lights directly on her new skin and feeding her through a syringe was
heartbreaking, I was mostly terrified that this 24 hours away from her
would ruin our breastfeeding relationship, that she would forget
everything she had learned about nursing in her 2 days of life, and that
she would forget I was there with her, for her. I couldn’t hold her, I
couldn’t cuddle her, and I couldn’t nurse her. I could only watch her
and listen to her cry as I hooked myself up to a pump every two hours on
the hour so she could drink my milk at the very least. The first thing I
did when she was out of the incubator was to nurse her and I felt so
relieved when she latched right on. I know many moms have gone
through/are going through much worse, but these are just some of the
things, no matter how trivial, you can’t prepare for as a new mom no
matter how many classes you take and books you read.

In
the class and in all the reading I did to prepare, I was told about the
physical pain that comes from breastfeeding. I don’t remember ever
feeling physical pain, not at all. My tubes of nipple cream I had
purchased pre-baby were either donated to friends or tossed. The pain I
felt was of a different kind. My newborn baby needed or wanted to nurse
almost every hour for an hour in the beginning, or at least this is what
I thought so I responded to her. Keeping steady with my goal to wait
for a bottle until after at least four weeks, I was in pain, pure
emotional exhaustive pain. I wanted to nurse my daughter and I did,
again, and again, and again. I don’t know how I was doing it, but I was
and without help. One night I was alone in the living room with her
nursing again and I felt tears running down my cheeks and I was thinking
to myself, “Why didn’t anyone prepare me for this? Why wasn’t I ready
for this?” I remember closing my eyes and praying that when I opened
them she would be asleep, her eyes closed too. At that point at about 3
weeks, I decided to go ahead and give her the bottle. I pumped a bit,
gave a bottle and slept a tiny bit through my fears that she would never
latch again. Well, of course she did and things kept getting better and
better and our breastfeeding relationship got very strong.

We’ve
gone through our ups and downs. I vaguely remember the frequent
feedings and night waking, trouble with night weaning, side lying and
co-sleeping just to get a few extra minutes of rest, a few bites with
new teeth here and there, and her phase of pinching, grabbing, and
scratching my arms and chest while nursing to the point of welts and
sometimes blood that I couldn’t break her of for over two months. What I
do remember vividly are the happy moments, when she just absolutely
cannot stay awake while nursing and her eyes open and close so heavily
until she drifts off, when she smiles up at me and milk spills out of
the corner of her mouth, the first time I tried to sing her to sleep
sweetly while nursing and she looked up at me and laughed, when she
pulls off to look for her Papi (her dad) and after she finds him she
smiles and comes right back to the breast fully satisfied that she knows
where everyone is that she loves, when I tickle her right after nursing
and she is wriggling on my lap, when I get home from work and she comes
and hugs me and leads me to our nursing chair saying mamá ven! (come
on, mom!)

One
day I looked down and I wondered where my baby was. First, she fit
beautifully on her boppy, next her legs could touch the inside of the
chair on the other side and she was practicing her stretching and
kicking skills, then her legs went over the arm of the chair, then she
was testing her physical limits while attached to me by attempting to
stand, dance, roll over while nursing. Then she started signing please
and milk, reaching for my shirt. All of the sudden she was saying moke
(milk) and más (more) and otro (the other), and boobie, and then began
walking sleepily into my room in the morning to nurse. I am left
wondering when this all happened.

My
first goal was a year. I was so thrilled that we made it but I was also
nervous about what other people would think because we were still
nursing. I have heard so many times that people stopped nursing at a
year but the only thought in mind was “she doesn’t know she is a year
old and it is unfair to take something away from her because of an
arbitrary date or rule.” So we continued. We are considered an extended
nursing pair. Well past the breastfeeding norm of society in the United
States. At around 18 months I sometimes felt like I was still treating
her like a small baby, nursing on demand which was still 2-4 times a
day, letting her doze off on the breast, bringing her into bed with us
after she wakes up in the morning and curling up with her cold toes.

I held on tight when I heard someone talk about the benefits of extended nursing such as the health benefits of the mother’s milk or the fact that nursing satisfies a young child’s inherent need for dependency so she can be more independent later. Some say that there are no long-term benefits of extended nursing. But to be quite honest, our nursing relationship was in the moment not in the future. I was not looking down at my daughter while nursing thinking wow she is going to be so smart and healthy just because we nursed for so long! Instead, I was thinking wow, I love her, I am glad I am doing this for her, with her, right now. We were nursing because we wanted to nurse. I thought to myself, when we no longer want to nurse, we will no longer be nursing. As my daughter approached her second birthday, I thought about weaning a lot, probably every day. I thought about when and how we would do it, and how we would feel. Most of all, I felt that if I forced it I would regret it. When she was weeks away from turning two, we began lightly weaning together. She was down to nursing once in the mornings and sometimes she even forgot she wanted to. By the time she turned two, the time was right for us to end our breastfeeding relationship and morning nursing was replaced with morning cuddles and chats. We are both happy and I have no regrets knowing that that beautiful chapter of our lives has ended and our little girl and mommy relationship is just beginning.

To
go back to the first paragraph where I wrote that motherhood makes you
do things you never have done before. I want to change my wording. I
want to say now that motherhood has let me have the most wonderful
experience that not everyone has or can. To put it bluntly, I feel
special and I feel blessed. My daughter has given me a gift that no one
else could, one that I will never forget. My advice to new moms is to do
what you feel is right and learn to advocate for yourself. The most
important people to think about as you make breastfeeding decisions are
yourself and your baby. Here’s to happy memories and happy babies!

Be sure to catch up with the rest of the Breastfeeding Diaries at the top of my navigation bar.