Breast is Best ... Or Is It?

I'm sure I sound like a broken record at this point and I'm positive Josh is tired of my constant feeding updates, she latched on today but didn't empty the breast, she refused to latch on, the midwife thinks it's a lost cause, the lactation consultant thinks its tongue tie, the health visitor thinks I should try her with a nipple shield, supportive friends tell me to reach for the bottle, and the frenzy in my mind continues. What if I did this? Maybe I should have ignored the midwife when she put me on the feeding schedule after Sage lost too much weight, if only I knew Helen existed earlier, why didn't I seek her out at the breastfeeding support group, how could I have missed the signs of thrush? Did I do everything I could? Am I missing valuable bonding time with both children because of this feeding obsession?

STOP!

You are enough, you've done enough, you've gone above and beyond this time. When things first started to unravel at day 5, with the 11% birth weight loss, you breastfed her with a shield to improve her latch and then expressed with a single pump on both sides and gave her that milk in a bottle, left the parts to be washed and sterilised by your doting husband and mother and got maybe 30 minutes to an hour of sleep before doing it all over again. BUT it was OK because it was only temporary.

Once she'd regained her birth weight and you were told you could stop expressing after every feed you jumped for joy at the extra sleep you'd get, then you got so engorged that you woke up with mastitis. BUT it was OK because it was only temporary.

Once the mastitis cleared you let her feed for hours on the breast, all the while ignoring your toddler. BUT it was OK because it was only temporary.

After a week of continual pain which you thought was just normal breastfeeding pain you learnt she had tongue tie. BUT it was OK because the operation was simple and she'd be successfully feeding minutes after having the snip so it was only temporary.

You pulled your husband out of work and went to see the tongue tie specialist, it wasn't a simple operation, in fact they don't even perform posterior tongue tie operations at the hospital because of the risk that the infant could get an infection or bleed excessively so you were just coming round to the idea of bottles being the only option when the midwife said, "You both have really bad thrush, perhaps this is why she's not feeding well." OK this is only temporary.

The thrush has just about cleared and she refuses to latch more times then she's willing and if the nipple shield isn't on you can just forget about any latching happening at all.

Minutes turn into hours, hours turn into days and you have a hands free expressing bra and walk around the house like something out of ghost busters in the hopes that if you keep your supply up she'll just magically latch on one day and you'll skip into the woods in pure breastfeeding bliss.

Many kinds of milk can nurture her body, but only your love can nurture her soul.

I don't know what the answer is and I probably never will, I'm stuck in a place of indecision which is not at all surprising to my husband as I often struggle to make a decision and when I do finally come round to it more times then not I live in the land of regret over the choice I made. The land of regret is no fun place to be which is probably why I've persevered through so much this time. I need to get to the point where my options have completely run out and the choice is essentially made for me. We're quickly closing in on that point. At 3+ weeks into it, with things going from bad to worse do I carry on expressing, giving her whatever drop of milk I can give until everything dries up or do I just say enough already and switch to formula as I eventually did with Cyril. Will I regret not carrying on with expressing just in case she surprises us all and magically started breastfeeding. Will I regret carrying on with expressing for weeks when things don't improve and feel like I wasted so much bonding time as a family with a teeny tiny baby and an adorable toddler. This is our last baby and I'm afraid to make a decision in case it's the wrong one and I'm left living in regret for a year like I did with Cyril.

Alissa Marques, a fellow blogger, wrote the following in a recent post and I can't write it any better myself so if you have 5 minutes it's worth reading:

"I've always been a person who has a hard time choosing. When I was a kid I would agonise over decisions, particularly when it came to participating in multiple events happening at the same time. I wanted to go to the birthday party with my friends, but still have dinner with my dad. I wanted to go to the movies but also stay home and play the game. Couldn't we do both - isn't there a way to fit it all in? I'd be in tears sometimes with the choices, sure I was going to choose wrong and miss out.

As a parent this thinking spread worry throughout my days. Whether for fun or for life changing decisions, I constantly worried I was making the wrong choice. I was constantly looking for reassurance that I was on the right path. And often sad or feeling guilty that in one way or another my kids were missing out.

I spent a lot of time being only half present, because I was so focused on looking back analysing whether I'd made the right choice.

So what changed? How have I stopped reshashing past decisions so much?

One day I realized that all choices have crappy consequences.

WHAT?!

I think it is important to remember that ALL choices lead to hardship. Life is hard. It will continue to kick you around. But also you get to continute to find ways to move through these temporary conditions. 'If only' you had chosen another path you would be presented with a different set of crappy things.

I find this line of thinking to be freeing. When you let go of believing that you are in control of everything and if you make all the right choices only good things will happen, then you are no longer responsible for all the misery and you can focus on dealing witht the current temporary condition instead of beating yourself up about having made the wrong choice."

When we realise we are not doing it wrong if we struggle, it is indeed freeing.

Have I made my final decision yet? No. Am I on the brink of a decision? Absolutely. Will I look back with regret? Most likely. But would I look back with regret if I chose a different path. Probably.

One thing I know for sure is that I'm a very lucky woman who is just having a hard time being stuck in the land of indecision. I'm lucky because we didn't struggle to get pregnant with either child as I've sadly witness happen to many of my friends. I'm lucky because I had a full-term healthy baby both times, again having witnessed this not being the case for two of my friends. I'm lucky because I get to stay at home with my children not for weeks or months but for years, although there have been times when I've contemplated signing up for any job, just to get a break from parenting. I'm lucky that my whole family is healthy and we're able to do all the activities we enjoy without struggling financially or physically.

I also know nursing is temporary, people talk about it being worth it and maybe it is, I don't think I'll ever get the chance to tell you if I felt it was anymore worth it then bottle feeding, perhaps someone who has done both can weigh in here on the pros and cons because I'm sure breastfeeding isn't pure bliss 100% of the time. I can tell you there are other ways to bond with your children that don't involve them being attached to your breast, I pretty much tried them all with Cyril after I felt so guilty with my decision to stop breastfeeding. There is baby wearing, bathing together, infant massage, skin to skin, turning off the TV and phone when you're feeding and just staring into those big blue eyes, singing songs, and being fully present in whatever activity you are doing with your children. My bond with Cyril is strong, and I'm confident it's just as strong as any mother who has breastfed and I don't think it would be any stronger if we hadn't bottle fed, in fact I have a feeling it might be less because I definitely overcompensated, the poor kid!