Latch Challenges and Self-Doubt – Dori’s Story

I had always dreamed I would breastfeed. I can even remember playing pretend with my dolls as a child. I don’t recall my first encounter with nursing but it has always been something that fascinated me. When I found myself single and pregnant at 20 with my oldest, Kayleigh, I knew I would give nursing my best shot. At the time I didn’t know about the benefits or the affects it would have on me physically or emotionally. While I was supported by my mom, I felt very alone.  Boy did I have a lot to learn. Looking back I tried but after two months of nursing and four months of pumping, due to the pain of latching, I quit nursing.

Fast forward ten years! I married my husband Justin and he took to my daughter right away. I knew he’d be a perfect Daddy not only to my daughter but to the son we welcomed in October of 2013. This time I knew what to expect. I knew how hard it would be and how dedicated the whole family needed to be to make this breastfeeding thing work. Once Jack arrived and at just one week was a nursing champ I was sure it was going to be different this time. That’s when the pain became more intense with each feeding. I reached out to a local lactation consultant due to the most excruciating pain I had ever felt. It was happening all over again!!

My son, Jack, was diagnosed with a class IV lip and tongue tie.  I didn’t know what that meant but I knew that it was preventing me from having the breastfeeding relationship I so desperately wanted. After revision at three weeks by a local dentist, we spent weekly appointments at the lactation consultant’s office and chiropractor’s office doing weight checks and receiving adjustments. These were some of the most trying times of my life. I emotionally had been punched in the stomach and beaten to the ground. I just wanted to feel normal, to be happy and to bond with my new baby. I sobbed every day and every day I threatened to quit. I just couldn’t do it anymore but I wanted to continue so badly.

I felt like I was fighting a losing battle every single day; like I had failed my son. My hopes and dreams of breastfeeding successfully were slipping further and further from my reach. I was angry the idea “breastfeeding is easy” as it’s portrayed in the media was a lie! I felt betrayed by everyone for not telling me how hard this really was going to be. I sobbed and pleaded with myself and God to just take the pain away, to give me the peace to quit and be content. I wanted the time to bond with my baby the way nature intended. I wouldn’t nurse pain free for nearly seven months.

If someone were to have told me I would nurse Jack until he was 16 months I would have laughed at them. The day we hit his 1^st birthday I felt more accomplished then I have ever felt. Knowing that my milk nourished my baby exclusively though his first year of life was the most rewarding feeling I have ever felt and I would do ALL of it over again in an instant. My milk supply started to dwindle at 14 months when I discovered I was pregnant, again. (I’m not sure which shocked me more, that we might be done nursing prematurely or that I was pregnant!) I had hoped to continue nursing Jack through this pregnancy but he self-weaned at 16 months and is a happy thriving little boy. He has been sick only two times in his little life and I attest all that to my liquid gold!

For next time, I know what to look for. I am more prepared for the challenges that lie ahead and the realities that nursing is a choice that I have to choose to fight for every single day. I am not one of the lucky few who get to say “nursing is easy” but I am one of the lucky few who get to say “Nursing past one is rewarding”! I attribute my success to my family. My 10 year old often felt “forgotten” at first and always wanted her Mommy but now she knows just how precious of an experience she was able to be a part of and is happy I completed my one year goal. My husband is my rock. Without him I would have quit far too soon, probably week one. He was always there encouraging me, listening to me sob and complain it wasn’t fair yet never once pressured me to quit. He is now supportive of breastfeeding mothers and has become friends with several of them at work, who are all impressed he knows so much. I love my little family and I am so excited to bring baby #3 into this world in July 2015. Here’s to hoping it’s easier but expecting it to be just as hard, yet so worth it in the end!