Last week was World Breastfeeding Week – At least I think it was last week, it might be this week, or it could have been last month. I’m never really quite sure what day it is anymore… Anyway, What a fantastic week to have, to promote and celebrate breastfeeding across the world; to help normalize it in all countries so that mothers might not be gawked at or shamed if they dare to attempt to breastfeed in a restaurant or airport or mall or other public place. Actually, I’m pretty sure America is one of the few places have to worry about the gawking and shame thing. But, hey. Breastfeed your babies! It’s the best thing for them! If you don’t breastfeed, your baby might end up like this guy!

And breastfeeding is soooo easy, right? You see photos of beautiful celebrities and models like Gisele Bundchen breastfeeding while in the middle of getting ready for a photo shoot, and the videos you watch in childbirth class of boringly real people make it look totally normal and natural. Even the creepy animated video that shows what happens to your nipple when your baby properly latches make it seem perfectly logical – like showing you how it’s supposed to look will completely ensure that your baby will hone in on your nipple right away and start sucking. Ha.

For me, and for many mamas I know, it just ain’t that easy. Once little J finally got his alien-shaped oblong head through me and the rest of his body followed, he was immediately put on my chest, as is the ideal situation right after birth. But he wasn’t there long, as they whisked him over to the baby warmer for a little jump start. (More on that later when I post my birth story.) Once he was crying to the satisfaction and relief of everyone in the room, I had him back on my chest and my boobs were there for the taking, and he just didn’t. He cried for a really, really long time, and wanted nothing to do with the nipple. By the time we got to the Mother & Baby floor, still no suckling had happened. I was discouraged and confused and hurt and worried.

The first nurse who examined him on Mom & Baby noted that he looked a little “jittery.” They pricked his tiny little heel with a needle to test his blood sugar, and it was a bit lower then they’d like. I tried nursing him again, to no avail. Then one nurse taught me about hand expression to try to get some of my colostrum out so that we could feed it to him with a tiny little syringe. I did this and it was difficult and painful and produced literally just a few precious drops on a little plastic spoon. I sucked the drops up with the tiny syringe and squirted them into his tiny mouth. This was my first experience feeding my baby. More nurses came and tried different things to get him to latch, and nothing worked. They brought us some donated milk (which we were lucky to have – many hospitals don’t have that resource and go straight to formula), which we fed him with the syringe, to help bring his blood sugar up. That first day, they had to prick his tiny little heel with a needle every hour until his blood sugar stabilized, which it did after about four or five times. He had marks from those needles on his heels for a couple of weeks.

Finally, the best nurse in the history of ever, Felicia, came to see us. Felicia was my nurse throughout my whole labor and delivery. She typically only works on the L&D floor, but the night after J was born, our first night on Mom & Baby, they were short staffed so they pulled a couple of L&D nurses to Mom & Baby. So she got to be our overnight nurse that night! We were all so stoked. She was fantastic. And, she was the first one to get J to successfully latch! I wish I could tell you her big secret, but all I remember is that she basically shoved his head onto my nipple, and he finally got it. He got it! Only on one side though. By the time we left the hospital and for probably the first two weeks, he only took one side. (By the way, by the time you leave the hospital, you will feel like everyone in the world has seen your boobs, and half of them have grabbed them. Just FYI for all you preggos or someday mamas.)

Because of his latching issues, I learned how to pump in the hospital, I talked to two lactation consultants when I was there, and once I got home (complete with hospital-grade rental pump), I made an appointment to go to see the lactation consultants again in a little over a week. In addition to feeding on the one side, I was pumping after each feeding, and then and feeding him with a syringe whatever was pumped from the other side. 5 to 10 milliliters was considered a victory. Do you know how little liquid that actually is? This was not the breastfeeding situation I envisioned. (I think I’ll dedicate another post to my experience with the lactation consultants.)

Anyway, that was the start of our breastfeeding challenges in the first few days, but not the end of them. Five months in and after a sh!# ton of work, I can now say that we have been successful. He learned how to latch on both sides, he is a much better and more efficient eater, my supply has increased and stabilized and his weight gain has improved. Of course, as with so many baby things, with each achievement, there’s another challenge around the corner. We’re now dealing with distracted feeding, and possibly some reflux issues. But we could have it so much worse. I’ve heard about mamas who have had to exclusively pump, mamas who constantly deal with blocked ducts and mastitis, mamas who were never able to get enough milk, and so on. It’s very rare that I’ve heard of mamas who had no troubles at all with breastfeeding, but I have heard that from a few. And those mamas have other challenges, whether it’s with baby’s health or sleeping problems or postpartum depression. The thing you quickly realize after talking to enough mamas is that every single one of us has challenges. None of it is easy, and some of our challenges are similar, but they are also so unique to each baby and each mama. And that’s one thing that unifies us: This shit is hard.

So while breastfeeding is great and awesome if you’re able to succeed with it, it also can be really challenging and testing. And you might not succeed, and that’s okay. I feel lucky that we were able to, knowing that it could have easily gone another direction. I still have formula in the closet that we got as free samples when I was pregnant, just in case we had to supplement. There was a time when I really thought we would.

I love that there’s so much support out there for breastfeeding, and I feel lucky that our hospital and our community here in Asheville are huge advocates, making resources available that some areas just don’t have. know that much of it has to do with medical people trying to undo the decades of hospitals and health care providers peddling for formula companies, and I do hope that everywhere else in the country eventually becomes like Asheville where nobody cares when or where you whip out your boob to feed your kid. But something that gives me a twinge with all of the shouting about the benefits of breastfeeding and that your baby’s gut will be forever damaged or your baby will become a psychopath if you don’t EBF for the first however long, etc., is that there are many mamas who try everything they can, and are just not able to breastfeed. And I feel like those mamas probably feel a crap load of guilt in the midst of all of this “praise the boob” hoopla. And I wouldn’t wish for any mama ever to feel more guilt than she already does just trying to keep her baby alive and healthy and loved.