You're On A What?

I really cannot put into words what it feels like when your baby rejects you.

Sophie has been going through stretches of symptoms that I have chalked up to teething.  And, finally, after nearly two months of these bouts, a tooth did begin poking through the skin about four days ago.

In addition, she is in the everything-is-more-interesting-to-me-than-eating phase.  Any sound, especially that of her brother, has her whipping her head around to investigate.  I try to feed her right after she wakes, in the relative quiet of her room, but even that has only been sporadically successful. 

So there was a trend.  But nothing prepared me for last Wednesday.  After her morning feeding she literally would not eat at the breast for the rest of the day.  Sure, she had quite a large breakfast of rice cereal, bananas, and sweet potatoes.  She does this sometimes: eats a lot of solids and then doesn’t breastfeed for anywhere from four to six hours.  It always puts me into a panic, mostly because Eli never went more than three hours between feedings. 

This was different.  Every time I thought she was hungry and attempted to feed her, she would turn her head away, arch her back, and scream bloody murder. 

It’s hard not to take this personally.

After eight hours with no feeding at the breast I had to pump.  An hour later, immediately after waking from her nap, I got her to eat for maybe three minutes.  It wasn’t much, but I felt immense relief.  Then the rest of the day: nothing.

At dinner I had Vinny give her a bottle of expressed breast milk.  She wolfed it down.  This was maybe the fifth or sixth bottle we’ve ever given her.  I was happy she still wanted my milk, but wounded that she didn’t seem to want me.

Were I not so ding-dang sleep deprived perhaps this wouldn’t be so difficult.  At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

That night I didn’t fare much better.  There was screaming, but I did get her to eventually eat both times she woke up.  Once morning arrived she was back on the no-eating-train.  My confidence was shot, I was so tired, and every attempt to feed her resulted in: her not eating, me in tears.

After getting everyone to bed that evening I decided it was time to put Google to use.  A simple search for “refusing the breast at 5 months” brought link upon link of people writing on this very topic.  Well.  I had a place to start. 

It only took a couple minutes of surfing before it became apparent that Sophie is on a “nursing strike.”  Excuse me?  They can do that? 

This discovery was met first with intense relief (okay, I’m not the only one this has ever happened to … why does it make me feel so good when I know someone else has shared my struggle?), and then a general sense of annoyance.

What is a nursing strike?  Exactly what it sounds like.  A babe refusing to nurse.  The reasons this may happen are numerous (teething, ear infection, cold, slow letdown, change in mom’s diet, hormones, etc.), but even more exasperating is the fact that quite often, there is no reason. 

Worst of all, though there are a couple “pointers” given (most of these are common sense type things you’re probably already trying), you’re simply supposed to ride it out in relative calm as to not upset your babe or your milk supply.  Huh.

I did take Sophie to the pediatrician to rule out an ear infection.  Eli’s never had one, and from my understanding sometimes babes don’t do anything that would indicate they even have one. 

She was quickly determined to not have an ear infection (although she had the beginnings of a small cold).  I pressed the doctor (not our regular):  How long of her not eating before I should be really concerned?  I then told him I was already really concerned. 

He dismissed my fears:  “She won’t intentionally dehydrate herself.  You know, she’s eating solids, she’s distracted, she’s just going to eat less.  Weigh her once in awhile and make sure she’s gaining.”

I stared at him, waiting.  Yes, I wanted to scream, but what can I DO in the meantime?  How can I tempt her back into eating?  How can I keep my sanity?  My confidence?  My cool?  What if I’m not pumping enough to maintain my milk supply (so easy to forget to pump with the thousand other things going on each day)?  What if…?

Sigh.  Why do our minds so quickly turn into a whirlwind of doubt, anxiety, panic?  It escalates, so quickly, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it (see: sleep deprivation).

We are now on day five of the nursing strike.  Some days are better than others.  Some days I can actually get her to nurse four or five times.  Other days it’s three times, tops.  In the meantime, I am loading up her rice cereal with as much moo as I can, and manage to squeeze an extra four to five ounces into her that way. 

And I have to say, for all the irritation and hurt feelings this is causing me, she’s her usual self (well, other than when I try to get her to eat and she doesn’t want to).  She doesn’t seem to be plotting against me, she certainly isn’t starving, she still smiles at me all the time. 

I guess she still likes me. 

Each time I attempt to feed her, I silently wish that the strike has passed, that we can both get back to the good work of giving and receiving, nourishing, bonding without speedbumps.  So far, no go.  I try to keep a positive attitude and hold the worries at bay.  As is so often true, this is easier said than done.

The No-Plan Plan

(or, why things got off to such a rough start)

I'll be the first to admit that I was (and still am) anti-birth plan. I downloaded a copy of a birth plan template from thebump.com, and was rather overwhelmed to see it was six pages long. This isn't to say you shouldn't give your upcoming birth some time and consideration. It's crucial to educate yourself and know what could/should & likely will happen.

However, my experience in life is that any time you try to plan for an event, and put all of your hopes into the said event going a very specific way, your plans will be foiled. I have never known any major life event to go perfectly, ever.

I figured birth would fall into this category as well. Why force parameters onto something you have no control over? So instead of compiling a birth plan, I put together a brief list of "preferences" for my OB. Such as: I would prefer not to have any pain relief. I would prefer to move about as needed/possible. The list was brief: eight preferences. When I showed it to my OB, he pulled out a ruler and measured the page. "What is this?" he exclaimed. "Four inches? It's the shortest birth plan ever!"

It felt good to not expect my birth to go a particular way.

Well, readers, let me tell you that while in some ways I had amply prepared myself for the process of birth (and in my mind, by extension, breastfeeding), in a few key ways I did not.

MISTAKE #1
I assumed I wouldn't have a c-section.

Why did I do this? Well, my pregnancy was "normal," and up until days before Eli's birth there were no inclinations that I would have any complications. Even then, the issue at hand was that my pelvis was not opening. My OB assured me that in most instances this became a non-issue once the woman began to dilate. A tiny red flag went up somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, but I chose to ignore it. I shouldn't have.

You see, in the few pregnancy books I did read, I always skipped over the c-section chapters. I wasn't going to have one, they freaked me out, why scare myself even more by reading about them?

MISTAKE #2
I assumed that breastfeeding would proceed without a hitch (yes, I can be a naïve idiot).

How the scenario played out in my mind: I would naturally birth my son, he would be placed onto my stomach, and minutes later he would breastfeed for the first time, thus completing one of the oldest, most natural scenes in all of history.

Remember Mistake #1?

I ended up having an emergency c-section after twenty hours of labor. When I emerged from recovery I found myself in a drugged-up, stupefied state. By the time Eli was wheeled in for our first true introduction, he'd already been introduced to the bottle and formula. This hadn't been my "preference," but I hardly felt in a state to disagree. I could barely move, how was I supposed to breastfeed?

MISTAKE #3
Not having a breastfeeding plan.

Sure, there's tons of talk about birth plans and what will happen during delivery given factors A, B, or C. But I had given no thought about what I would do, what support systems I would lean on, if and when breastfeeding became a harrowing challenge, which it did almost immediately.

On day three post-partum, after asking the nurses several times, the hospital's lactation consultant finally paid me a visit. At this point I was becoming discouraged from the entire enterprise, and the blisters on my right nipple had me wincing each time Eli was forced onto my breast to "try again." Maybe this wasn't going to work?

Thankfully, the LC had a soothing demeanor, and offered some useful tips and suggestions. Of course, one of those suggestions was that we not feed the baby any more formula. At all. Considering all the problems I was having getting the baby to latch on, this didn't seem realistic, but I became determined that dammit, the baby wasn't going to have any more supplemental formula.

MISTAKE #4
Failing to be flexible.

Once I decided Eli wasn't going to have any more formula, I became hell-bent on that goal. And for nearly two days (the last day at the hospital and the first day home) he was an entirely breastfed baby and I felt like I had somehow overcome the worst of it. I was doing this!

That is, until I wasn't. Until Eli wouldn't latch on, again. Until he wasn't eating sufficiently. Until I was so sleep-deprived that I caved in, sobbing to my husband, "Just give him some formula." I felt so defeated. I felt like I had failed. I felt like a terrible mother, poorly equipped to nourish my son.

In reality, I had underestimated the toll labor and delivery would take, as well as the effects of ping-ponging hormones raging through my body. In the days after birth the highs and lows came with alarming force and with small passages of time between each extreme.

I needed to cut myself some slack.

I made a couple calls to close friends and to my acupuncturist (who had recently given birth to her second child & is always a source of wisdom for me). It was from these conversations that I began to learn that breastfeeding rarely comes "naturally" to anyone. It's a taxing process, one that takes practice, patience, and gentleness towards oneself. Having a meltdown each time we needed to supplement with formula, until we could get things on track, wasn't going to do anyone any good whatsoever.

I began to wonder why, in all the excitement of pregnancy, in all the talks with friends about pregnancy-related ailments, discomforts, joys, and fears, we had never talked about breastfeeding?

That's why I’m here. I'm here to share my challenges, my triumphs, my frustrations, and perhaps most importantly, my mis-steps. I find myself struggling, at odds with what I think is best for Eli, and what is best for me. There are feelings of guilt and selfishness. So far, I have managed to persevere. I am ten weeks in and still breastfeeding. For me, this is an enormous victory.

I want to talk about breastfeeding (and motherhood) with openness and honesty, and because it is in my nature, with humor. This is a place for sharing, with no judgments handed out when the goals, tactics, and ideas of others differ from my own.

My one breastfeeding goal from the earliest stages of pregnancy was to breastfeed Eli for a year. We'll see if I get there, but if I don't, I will back up and remind myself of that "gentleness towards oneself" bit.