Breast is best but...

I don't know how many times in the last three months I've heard (or read) this: 

"Breast is best." 

I get it, I totally do, I wanted to be the woman breastfeeding her baby like a hippie outside under a tree. Problem is my baby had other ideas. 

Having a mum who breastfed me until I weaned myself the day after my 1st birthday, I always assumed I'd be able to breastfeed my babies. It's the most natural thing isn't it? The way we were born to do it. In fact, how would anyone survive if we didn't do it? I understood that premature babies had little hope of breastfeeding because they hadn't yet developed the sucking reflex, but beyond that it seemed to me that putting bub on the boob would be the easiest thing in the world. 

Well, sadly, it's not. Not for some of us anyway. 

My gorgeous little girl struggled from day one. She was just over a week before her due date (thanks to the induction) and only a tiny tot at 2.6kg. She was exhausted before she even got to wrap her lips around my not so conducive nipples. It would be easy for me to spiral into more of the details around why our breastfeeding journey was so difficult, but I'm not sure if that would be for your benefit or mine. I expressed milk for her in a compromise to her baulking at my breasts. On her three month birthday (partly by coincidence of my milk drying up than symbolic timing - although I did shed a tear) she had her last bottle of breastmilk. She is now a fully fledged, formula feeding, bottle bub.

I am so grateful that our society has such strong and passionate bodies dedicated to educating and supporting women through breastfeeding their children. It is absolutely, without a doubt, the best thing your little munchkin can have - their own mum's milk. But what I've discovered along the way is that there isn't an association for 'Mum's Who Really Want To Breastfeed But Their Baby Struggles And They Keep Getting Mastitis And Their Nipples Aren't Easy For The Baby So They Scream Whenever They Are Put To The Breast Even After You've Seen A Lactation Consultant'. Funny that, huh? It might sound like an extreme, ridiculous idea for an association (which it is) - but my point is that there are actually so many women out there who suffer from this, or something similar, and there really doesn't feel like there's somewhere to turn. 

The feeling is all too familiar. I felt it with the miscarriages (www.treebambino.blogspot.com) - so many people have had them, yet no-one feels safe enough or empowered enough to talk about them. It's like you've failed if you can't carry a baby or your baby won't breastfeed. The more I spoke to the women with babies in my life, the more the stories came up about their difficulties; the battles with mastitis, the cracked, bleeding nipples - crying because their baby was hungry and wanted to feed. So I tried to figure out who it was that was making us feel so ashamed, so powerless to change things. And then I realised for the most part it's us. 

I was my biggest task master. The evil ways of the unrelenting perfectionist gene. Somewhere (probably in my childhood) I'd told myself that to be a good mum I had to breastfeed. And I say me specifically, because I've understood why other women have decided to bottle feed their babies. So many of my most wonderful friends, including my partner, were bottle fed. They are some of the most intelligent, creative, caring, healthy people I know. It didn't make much sense that I continued to berate myself over something that I was surely fighting a losing battle with.

You see, I think there's so much more to bub's health and happiness than the enzymes and proteins that flood into her tummy. If she's spending 99% of her time with me, I'm thinking that my health and happiness also plays a huge factor in her wellbeing. When do we ever want to spend our time hanging out with the sick, unhappy, crying person for fun? I want my daughter to have an energetic memory of me being present with her, of me being overwhelmed with nothing but love when I'm feeding her - not wincing with pain or rushing off to attach the breast pump. I'm sure there will be women out there who disagree and that's ok, but I'm willing to bet you that they either have never had a breastfeeding issue or are stuck in a martyr complex. Maybe. 

So once again I learn! Thank you beautiful baby of mine for showing me yet another possibility in life. I'm still a little sad that I couldn't breastfeed and I did allow myself a day or two of tears to grieve it. On the whole though, I feel so much happier that my body revolted enough to help me make the decision to let it go. I can now see more and more the independent nature of my little cherub shining through. I'm sure that feeding isn't the only thing along the way that she's going to decide she wants to do her way.