In the new year, we wanted to share some stories of breastfeeding from our MILC mamas. Just like birth stories, every breastfeeding story is a little different, with its own challenges and triumphs. We believe sharing these stories helps normalize breastfeeding – all of breastfeeding, including the hard parts! A big thanks to Morgan for kicking off our series with her honesty and beautiful writing.

By Morgan Taylor Callahan

December 26, 2017: After 19 months of trying to conceive, 39 LONG weeks of pregnancy, extreme pregnancy anxiety resulting in full body rashes and itching, and 12 hours of labor, our sweet Saoirse Kate had finally arrived.

Saoirse was born with her cord wrapped around her neck and meconium in her fluid. She spent her first 15 minutes (the longest 15 minutes of my life) across the hospital room with the respiratory/NICU team before she was deemed fit for me to hold. A nurse helped her latch onto my breast, and it was… the start of a painful, challenging, frustrating experience that would take months and months to feel normal, let alone natural.

Saoirse immediately began sucking vigorously – you could hear her across the room. “Good, this is good,” I thought, as my toes curled in pain and I fought the urge to rip her from my body and back away from her in horror. “Is this supposed to hurt?” I asked, knowing from my breastfeeding class with Rebecca a few months earlier that it probably wasn’t supposed to hurt quite this badly. But I was a first time mom, and no one in my family had ever breastfed before, so my knowledge of breastfeeding was conceptual at best.

After about one minute of this excruciating first session, I stuck my pinky in the corner of her mouth like I learned in class to adjust her latch. I was horrified to discover a quarter sized bruise on my nipple. The nurse noticed, too, and said we should try the other breast. Five minutes later, I was sporting matching bruises on both nipples with bleeding to top it off.

Our first visit with the hospital lactation consultant made me feel somewhat better, but didn’t actually improve anything. I asked several times if Saoirse had a tongue tie. I knew that there was something wrong. “No, she’s got a strong suck, she’s doing great, here’s a nipple shield to protect your nipples ‘cause they’re pretty flat!”. Um, okay.

By the time she was 36 hours old, our 7 pound, 2 ounce baby weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces. I was told in the middle of the night that I needed to make a decision about supplementing due to her weight loss. I knew I wanted to give nursing a chance, so I asked to pump and supplement rather than give her formula or donor milk. I nursed her, and then pumped so my husband could syringe my pumped milk into her mouth one milliliter at a time. Meanwhile, my anxiety was skyrocketing. When she slept, I would pace the hospital room to try to push away the feeling of bursting out of my skin. When I laid down, my heart would race and I felt like I had a cinderblock sitting on my chest. Saoirse’s name meant “freedom”, but I felt trapped.

The morning we expected to be sent home, the hospital pediatrician told us that based on Saoirse’s weight loss alone, she should be admitted to the NICU, but she was “such a vigorous nurser with a strong suck!” that she felt okay sending us home. So, home we went with instructions to continue to nurse, pump, and bottle feed every two hours round the clock.

By the next day, I was so tired and anxious that I texted my best friend and said “I know I need to wake her up to nurse her, but I can’t do it.” She was the only person I was close to who had ever successfully breastfed. “I know you’re tired. It’s so hard. But you have to wake her up. You have to do it. She will wind up in the NICU if you don’t. The first two weeks are the hardest. Wake her up.”

At this point, I dreaded nursing. I would cry as I tried to latch her and cringe and curl my toes the entire time she nursed. I continued to have chest pains, which the OB on call told me were from my milk coming in. And then, when I finished nursing, I had to pump, then clean bottles and pump parts. By the time I was done, it was time to start all over. “Why don’t you just give her a bottle and sleep?” my mom asked. I cried some more.

Our first appointment with Saoirse’s doctor was like a breath of fresh air. She had been my primary care physician for several years, and I liked her, so I decided to bring Saoirse to her, too. I never knew the range of breastfeeding support and knowledge varied so greatly between family doctors and pediatricians until later, but I am so thankful that mine happened to be very pro-breastfeeding and knowledgeable too. She sat with us for an hour and a half at the first appointment. She watched us nurse, did a weighted feed, and talked to me about how I was feeling. She diagnosed Saoirse’s anterior tongue tie and clipped it in the office, which immediately doubled her milk transfer. She gave me a huge hug before we left and told me we would be okay.

We went back to her almost daily for the first couple weeks, until Saoirse started gaining weight again. We were referred to Rebecca, who we saw in between doctor’s visits. My plan of keeping my winter baby indoors until the end of flu season were completely shot with daily appointments, sometimes two a day. We were referred to an ENT, who diagnosed a posterior tongue tie and clipped it. We began feeding therapy, craniosacral therapy, six-times-a-day tongue stretches which I jokingly referred to as “physical therapy for her tongue”, and I still kept nursing, pumping, and bottle feeding around the clock.

Through all of this, my anxiety continued to grow. When Saoirse was five days old, I had chest pains that wouldn’t go away. So, on New Year’s Eve, we woke up our sleeping newborn, bundled her up against the 6 degree, windy night, and drove to UNC Emergency Department. I thought for sure I was having a postpartum heart attack and would be the next viral social media sob story of a dead new mom. I cried the entire time we were in the ED, thinking of all the germs she was being exposed to – I was on a bed in a hallway because they were completely overrun.

A thoughtful and kind nurse found my husband a private waiting area, which protected the baby from some of the germs, but made me want to scream. It was the first time she had been separated from me since she was born. I sat on a gurney in the hallway with milk streaming down my body and tears streaming down my face. We only had one bottle with us, which my husband tried to warm with his hands in case she woke up hungry. 5 hours later, I was released with antacids and a clean bill of health. Saoirse slept the entire time and never needed the bottle. We still joke that we owe her an ice cream cone for that.

Two days later, at Saoirse’s next doctor’s appointment, she brought up the ED visit. “I saw in your chart that you had an anxiety attack,” she said. This was news to me. I immediately made a new appointment with the psychiatrist who treated me for anxiety while I was pregnant. I found out that the feelings I was having weren’t normal and I didn’t have to suffer through them. We doubled my anxiety medication. I started therapy. From this side of things, I am convinced my struggles with breastfeeding contributed to the extreme postpartum anxiety I experienced.

I’d love to say that this story ends with “and then we nursed until she self-weaned and now I am going to school to be a lactation consultant and share this magical joy with new moms everywhere,” but it doesn’t. I pumped after every feed, every two hours, for a month. Then I pumped after every daytime feed for a few more weeks. I fumbled with that blasted nipple shield at every feed for 4 months. One day, Saoirse ripped it off and latched like it was no big deal, and that was that.

When I returned to work as a school counselor at 14 weeks postpartum, I didn’t respond to the pump like I did at home. My supply tanked. We continued nursing at home, but I really had to work hard to stretch those pumped ounces until school got out for the summer. I rented a hospital pump. We somehow made it to June and happily resumed nursing all summer, but when school started in August I had to start supplementing with formula at daycare for my own sanity.

Now, at 12 months, besides feeling shocked we actually made it this far, nursing finally feels natural. I no longer have to help her latch with both hands, while holding my breath and bracing for pain. I no longer have to hold her in just the right position to avoid fatiguing her tiny muscles while blowing on her face and pumping her arm up and down to keep her awake (although I will say this awkward motion led to her most lasting nickname – “Pumpers”). I also no longer give her bottles of pumped breast milk, but bottles of formula. Teething was a whole new kind of defeat, and I had the puncture wounds and blood blisters to prove it.  I had small victories, like the first time I left the house without a nipple shield or the first time I nursed in public without a cover.

I tell my pregnant friends that I would rather go through childbirth again than the first few months of nursing. It was the hardest thing I have ever, ever done, but now that we are a year in, I am proud of myself for sticking it out. I’m even more proud of myself for realizing I needed to prioritize self-care and my mental health, and deciding to give her some formula at 9 months old rather than continue to stress about my pumping output. My anxiety is finally under control, and I am able to bond and be present with her in ways I didn’t even know were possible when she was first born. She is now a 16 pound tornado, who is crawling all over and showing me all the ways we still need to baby-proof the house. All fueled by the power of mama milk… and a little bit of formula!