An update on nursing Essie

So breastfeeding isn't going too well.

I wasn't sure how to begin this post so I figured that's as good a start as any.

I have been meaning to come here and work through this for weeks, yet I just can't find the time. But lately I've been wondering if I have actually been avoiding it. So many emotions are wrapped up in nursing. 

And things seem to be changing so quickly. Three weeks ago, I wrote posts in my ahead about how Essie's tongue tie was fixed and how I was hoping it was the answer to all our problems and how my supply would really kick in now and how I wanted to see a lactation consultant... but I never got a chance to type it up. Two weeks ago, I had every intention of sharing how I rented a hospital-grade pump, how excited the woman at the lactation place was for me, how excited people always are. And how just days later, I was getting nearly no milk, how frustrating it was, how I was still looking forward to my appointment with the lactation consultant, how the appointment came and went and I was told to pump eight to 10 times a day. How I actually only found time to pump one to four times a day, when I was lucky. And what a huge pain it was to pump with three kids, made even worse by pumping imaginary milk.

I wanted to come here and lament how I was getting nearly no milk at all. What it felt like to see a drop each time, so little that it wouldn't even trickle down into the collection bottle. How I'd get basically nothing from pumping, but how excited I was when I'd get a milliliter - a MILLILITER - from hand expressing immediately afterward.

But before I could write any of that, I was stopping. I was done with the pump. With my one milliliter and the bottle's stupid, teeny, tiny, little lines that mocked me. 

Unfortunately, all of this lead to me nursing Essie less and less. There was just something about knowing that I had no milk that made it all seem so silly and so easy to cut corners. I'd need to run errands and Ryan would just give her a bottle. What did it matter? I had no milk anyway. 

But then I noticed she seemed unsettled at times, and it hit me - My lack of milk wasn't news to her. She has known all along that she wasn't getting much, yet she still loved it. And here I was cutting her off, simply because I felt stupid about it. How selfish of me. Maybe she needed it. The cuddling. Me. 

So that sounds like I'm leading up to revealing that I'm back to nursing, and things are going great, even if there is barely any milk, right? Not exactly. The truth is, it's hard to nurse when you know you don't have anything to give. She's getting older and bigger and isn't okay with getting nothing while she's starving. 

I have to admit, a small part of me is relieved (which is SO weird because a much bigger part of me is sad and disappointed and grieving the loss of nursing forever, since I probably won't ever be pregnant again and if I can't handle this, then I definitely can't start from scratch to nurse another child we may adopt). It's just that bottle-feeding is so much easier than nursing when nursing is a struggle. Nursing Luke was cake, I loved it. He never took a bottle until his sippy cup. But man, this is hard. Not initially, but ever since finding out the truth about my supply.

Another part of me is humiliated. One of those versions of posts I wrote in my head was entitled, "I'm a nursing fraud" (yes, I think up titles to my imaginary posts). Everyone thought it was so neat (or weird, but they didn't admit that to me) that I was nursing. Our pediatrician in Arizona was jumping out of her skin she was so thrilled about it. The leader of a support group was teary-eyed as she talked about me to the group. The woman at the lactation center was going to ask my consultant for updates on how it was going because she just thought it was the coolest thing. I have to admit I liked hearing that, just as many stay-at-home moms who get zero feedback on their work performance would probably like to. I was nursing my baby who I did not give birth to. That was my story. Only probably was it turned out I wasn't really nursing her. So ya, I felt like a fraud. I eventually convinced myself that I wasn't one since I wasn't actually aware that I didn't have any milk. Fraud? On second thought, no. But humiliated? Sure. 

It was just so easy the first time around. I was one of those mothers who had no problems, except for Luke's dairy allergy, but that was it. No issues with supply. I empathized with moms who couldn't keep breastfeeding, but I really couldn't relate. Now I can. No amount of mother's milk tea or lactation cookies are going to mimic what a pregnancy did for my breast milk. 

I decided early on that I didn't want to take drugs. They're just not for me. This is just going to happen and I'm going to have to deal with it. I may already have nothing left, but Luke still swears there's something there. He's probably just being kind.

I haven't even touched on the guilt. Oh, the guilt. It's there when glancing at the warning on the formula package and when winding up on an anti-formula rant on a friend-of-a-friend's facebook page. Did I try hard enough? Am I giving up too soon? Should I have just tried the meds out of love for Essie? Should I have kept pumping? Should I have prayed harder?

Clara was formula-fed and I was fine with it. Maybe with her it didn't feel like a failure because I didn't try. And I hadn't yet experienced nursing at that point. I should just be thankful I was able to do it at all, instead of mourning that it was only for one baby. 

Or two, if I count Essie. And I probably should. I'm just in that phase where I'm still being hard on myself, kind of like after my c-section with Luke (I'm resisting the urge to put the word nurse in quotations, just as I wanted to do with the word birth after he was born). But, as I did after Luke, I need to pick myself up and move on with what I've been given. Which is a beautiful baby who I love with all my heart, who sometimes loves to nurse no matter how many millimeters she's getting, and at other times is hungry and wants her bottle. A baby who is growing like crazy and is healthy and happy. 

A little blue-eyed gift from God that I am humbled and overjoyed to be given the responsibility of raising. I will always do what's best for her, but sometimes you hit a wall with what you had hoped was possible and we might be there when it comes to nursing. So you back away from that wall and take a different path. I've calmed her by nursing several times in the last couple of days and there is a lot to be said for that.

It's so easy to judge our worth as a mother by those little lines on the bottle when pumping. It's easy to think about what she's not getting from me, how more breast milk could possibly make her healthier or smarter or more whatever. But I'm learning it's not just about how much I produce. That's only part of the story.

It's also about what nursing is doing for her. What it's done for me. It's about the soothing, the snuggling, the warmth, the bonding. I will never forget bringing this tiny baby back to our hotel after she was discharged from the hospital, putting her to my breast, and her latching and staying there for an hour. She has always loved nursing, no matter what she was getting. And when I stop to think about it, I realize what an enormous blessing that is.

I'm so grateful for these months and for however much I am able to breastfeed her in the future. The amount of milk may be small, but the benefits have been enormous. And for that I am forever grateful.