My local health dept. is hosting a breastfeeding celebration in a few weeks, and they are having a breastfeeding story contest. I decided to enter, so here is my story. Enjoy!
My breastfeeding story: a second chance
Before my son was born in June of 2010, I knew I was going to breastfeed. It was such a natural decision for me; it was what my body was designed to do, after all. I took a class, I read books, I thought I was prepared. I wasn?t.
When my son was born I was stricken with a debilitating occurrence of postpartum depression. I could barely function, much less make the commitment to breastfeeding a newborn, which we all know can be extremely challenging in those first few weeks. So just before my son turned 3 weeks old, I gave up and quit.
I started receiving treatment for my depression, and as I climbed out of my slump, I began to deeply regret my decision to stop breastfeeding. I felt like I had failed my son by giving up so quickly. That?s when I started doing research. I learned about re-lactation and about how adoptive mothers can and do successfully breastfeed. And I knew this was my solution because I could get a second chance at something that was truly important to me as a mother: being able to breastfeed my son.
There was nothing easy about re-lactation. I first had to trick my body into producing milk again, which I was able to do through a combination of Domperidone (a lactation-causing drug) and near-constant pumping, every two hours around the clock. It took several weeks, but eventually I got the milk flowing, a little bit more each day. I remember the first day I topped off one of my son?s formula bottles with about a quarter of an ounce of breast milk; I was on cloud 9!
The next trick was to teach my son how to nurse. By this time he was 3 months old, and of course didn?t remember how to latch. So we were starting from scratch all over again. I bottle fed him in a breastfeeding pose, I took baths with him and enjoyed as much skin-to-skin snuggle time as possible, I took advantage of those drowsy almost-asleep moments and popped a breast in his mouth, anything I could think of to get him used to the idea of latching. My patience and persistence finally paid off, I got my son latching again and we were finally breastfeeding again!
Perhaps it is because I worked so hard to get to this point. Perhaps it is because of what a truly remarkable thing it is to breastfeed. I really don?t know. But I do know that every time I put my child to my breast and hear him quietly sucking away, I feel an incredible satisfaction, to be providing for my son, to be bonding with him in such a truly intimate, amazing way. It is a feeling that I will always be able to look back on and cherish, of this wonderful journey that the two of us experienced together.
I will always be thankful that I was afforded this second chance, to take a choice that I made under duress and deeply regretted, and make it right. I know my son would be healthy and happy regardless of whether he was breastfed or formula fed, but breastfeeding him was always important to me, and I can be proud of myself for all of my hard work and dedication to finally make breastfeeding happen.
Re: Just wanted to share