I don't know what to say - maybe I should have posted this a long time ago. I'm still not over this. I don't know if I ever will be.
I have one question that has been burning inside of me for six months though. If I ever have another baby, will the end result be the same? Will I never be able to make enough milk to ebf my children?
My baby was born 2 weeks early through c-section. My waters had went early and I never dilated more than 2 cm despite lots of meds. My milk didn't come in until day 7, and by then, Micah had been drinking some formula in addition to the breast as advised by his pediatrician as he was losing too much weight. Was that the first wrong decision? Or one that helped save him from starving?
He would scream at the breast all day, hungry for more and my body wouldn't give him more milk, or when it did, it didn't flow fast enough maybe? I don't know. He would scream and scream until he got a bottle. And so this is how it went. And I sunk more and more deeply into depression.
I started to keep him away from everyone but me, hoping that if I kept him with me and only offered the breast, my supply would increase and things would be okay. But that didn't work either. My supply stayed the same.
I borrowed some money and got a 300 dollar pump. I would nurse and pump after every feed. I was pumping round the clock. It felt like I was either doing one or the other - nursing or pumping. I bought all the different supplements meant to increase your supply. Micah and I both smelled of maple syrup for weeks. I drank mother's tea cup after cup. I drank so much water.
My supply never went up.
I started to lash out at everyone around me. I was angry, hurt. I felt like a failure. The one thing I was supposed to be able to do, I could not. Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of being able to breastfeed my little baby. And I couldn't. I couldn't birth him and I couldn't feed him. And I found myself yelling at him - I was begging him to give me a chance to feed him, begging him to try too. Then telling DH I didn't want him - I couldn't care for him, he didn't want me anyway.
I was constantly fighting with DH, and our marriage was falling apart, because all I cared about was trying to ebf. I yelled at him every time he appeared with the bottle. I cried and screamed and acted like a brat, telling him I hated him and he was unsupportive and I couldn't do this alone. He cried. I cried. Micah cried. A lot.
I never fed him with the bottle - I said I didn't want to be associated with that thing. On the rare occassion I had no other option, I'd cry the entire time I fed him with it, cursing God for making me do this. Not ever once thinking, oh I'm so grateful this option exists so Micah can eat! Otherwise he'd be dead! I didn't want to touch the bottle...make it...anything. Any time I had to, I'd cry. I'd feel sick.
Micah's nurse practitioner gave me a hard time. She called me a horrible mother for giving him formula. She didn't care that I was trying so hard. Only that I was failing. Obviously every mother could make enough milk to give her child. I just wasn't trying hard enough.
It made me more obsessed. What else could I do? It's impossible to not make enough right? But it never went up. I was crazy. Suicidal. I wanted to die because I couldn't ebf.
I had said I hated my husband, whom I've been with for six years. I had said I hated my 6 week old son, whom meant more to me than anything in the world.
And that was when I knew it had to stop.
I tried stopping cold turkey.
Micah kept mouthing at my breast and grabbing my shirt. He'd fuss every time I put the pacifier in his mouth, spitting it out. He didn't want it. My breasts began to hurt and I got mastitis. It hurt insanely bad and I felt so sick.
And that's when I realized I could do something for him. I couldn't feed him, but I could be his pacifier. Any time he wanted comfort, I could be that for him. And so that is where we are today - he nurses for comfort whenever he wants. When he's tired or cranky, he tries to nurse. And it helps. And I'm at peace with that - it took awhile to get used to, but we're healthier for it. He eats his solids now, twice daily. He has almost all of his milk through formula. But he absolutely refuses pacifiers or any type of soother. He only wants to nurse. And that's okay - I'm just happy I can do this for him, even if it's not what I had wanted originally.
His nurse practitioner still judges me. People around me still judge me. I still cry when I see other mothers nursing in public, wishing I could be doing that instead of holding Micah's bottle. I'm crying as I type this. I'm not over it. I'm not - but I'm not sick over it anymore. I wash and sterilize his bottles. I make them for him. I feed him at almost every feeding. And I don't think about it each time...I don't cry while doing it. I spent hundreds of dollars every month on formula. But he's fed. I just wish I could have been a success.
Will I ever be able to ebf a child of mine? I wonder.
I love Micah more than anything. To him, and to my husband, I'm so sorry. For the way I acted. For what I put our family through in my obsession to ebf. I said it was for Micah, but maybe it was really for me. He has a fever of 103 right now, and possibly has the flu. All I can say through my tears is I want nothing more than for him to feel better. I'm so scared. I love you, Micah. I'm sorry.