In honor of World Breastfeeding Awareness Week, I thought I’d share my personal breastfeeding journey with you.

Before I had my children, I had thought, like many others, that breastfeeding was fairly simple and straightforward.  The “hard part” that everyone talks about is the obvious hurdle of extracting or expelling a 6 – 10 lb human out of a very small orifice, so, nourishing said 6 – 10 lb baby should be a cinch. 

After all, isn’t it supposed to be the most natural and biologically innate thing to do?  For a mother to feed her own baby? 

Both of my babies were born with severe jaundice, which just means that they had an excess of Bilirubin in their blood that their bodies were unable to break down. 

There are many risk factors to the development of severe jaundice in newborns, but doctors say that jaundice may occur more often in exclusively breastfed babies, particularly those who have difficulty nursing or getting enough nutrition from breast-feeding. Dehydration or a low caloric intake may contribute to the onset of jaundice. (Source: CDC Breastfeeding Jaundice)

As quickly as we were discharged from the hospital, we were back in monitoring bilirubin levels, and I was listening to my newborn babies wail because they needed blood samples taken each and every time.  My heart broke anew, watching them pricked, bruised, and prodded. 

We were told that jaundice usually goes away on its own in time, but in Aimee’s case, she had tested for higher than normal bilirubin levels and we were told that if she continued to have levels as high as they were, that she would possibly succumb to brain damage. 

As a first time mother still trying to make sense of her new reality, this was terrifying news.  My baby was 3 days old, and I felt guilty, overwhelmed, and powerless.  I felt like a horrible mom – that all of this was my fault.

We were admitted back into the hospital for phototherapy where you basically place your newborn child in a flourescent box and she wears a mask over her eyes to protect her corneas from the UV light.  I was told that I could not remove her from the box to breastfeed her and spent an agonizing 24 hours listening to her cry and thrash without being able to hold her, feed her, or comfort her. 

I requested a breast pump just so that I would be able to still produce milk, since I was told that the first couple days of birth are crucial for milk production, but my milk had not fully come in yet, and when I did pump, I was only getting ½ oz per side at a time, sometimes pumping for 30 minutes to try and squeeze a couple more drops. 

It was my dark night of the soul.  This was the start of my motherhood journey, and it eviscerated any confidence I thought I could have as a new mom, setting the stage for what I did not know at the time was almost a year of postpartum depression.

In addition to all of this, I was also told that my baby may not be getting enough to eat and poor breastfeeding may have been exacerbating her jaundice, so we had to supplement with formula – even possibly having to switch to exclusive formula feeding. 

This wasn’t at all what I imagined and the lie that continually circulated in my mind was “You are a failure.  You cannot even provide for your baby.” 

I felt betrayed by my body, and in a way I felt like God made my body broken and not fit for motherhood.  I wondered if my children weren’t better off with a mother that was whole, and whose body was able to provide and nourish for them?

I started to envy other mothers who had so much milk that they were able to donate to milk banks.  Women who constantly had full breasts and pumped 4 – 6 ounces each breast at a time.  I felt isolated and misunderstood, as I tried to explain to my husband how it felt to feel insufficient.

I prayed that I would have and be enough for my baby.  So I dedicated myself to feeding them on demand.  Whether it was nursing through teething spells, nursing through nursing strikes, nursing while standing, nursing while walking, nursing every 30 minutes, cluster feedings, every 2 hours at night, through the screaming and the pain, I did it. 

Aimee’s jaundice eventually went away, and her bilirubin levels returned to normal after a month and a half. When I was away from Aimee, I would consistently pump 1.5 ounces per side – totaling 3 ounces per feeding.  It wasn’t much, but it was the most that I could produce.  I feared weigh-ins and constantly expected to hear from the pediatrician that she was underweight because surely 3 oz per feeding wasn’t enough?

But, guess what? 

She was always at a healthy weight and within the 90^th percentile for height.  I ended up EXCLUSIVELY breastfeeding her for 13 whole months – stopping only because she needed to start daycare. 

When medical experts, lactation consultants, doctors, all the mommy websites were telling me that I wasn’t producing enough or I wasn’t going to be a “breastfeeding success story”, I kept going.

I was enough for her, and so are you, mama.

You are enough for your baby. Whether your journey looks like supplementation, exclusively breastfeeding, exclusively pumping, or exclusively formula, trust that YOU are the best person for this job: chosen by God, capable, and not alone.

Read Part II of the story:
Breastfeeding & Breast Hypoplasia,
Insufficient Glandular Tissue (IGT)

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