**PAIL Monthly Theme: "Feeding your child" - I am finally participating in my first (and hopefully not last) PAIL monthly writing prompt post!  This topic was selected because it is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month.  Enjoy!**

Before I had B, I remember thinking about how much I wanted to breastfeed, but how scared I was to do it.  I signed up for classes, consulted friends and family, and G.oogled like crazy.  I was very worried that I wouldn't have enough of a supply for my little man.  I spent a decent amount of time obsessing over this.  In the back of my mind I worried about things like the pain and pumping at work, but honestly the forefront of my nervousness was centered around supply.  Maybe I figured that since I had such a tough time with keeping pregnancies and being pregnant that this would be one more thing I would struggle with.  Little did I know what completely different types of breast feeding challenges that would lie ahead of me...

Like any other responsible mother, I had a birth plan.  I was adamant about sticking to that birth plan.  I printed out 20 copies of that freaking plan and distributed them to any and everyone on the hospital staff that would take one.  Amongst major plan points such as no epidural until I was screaming in pain, no pacifier for the baby to avoid nipple confusion, baby rooming with us 100% of the time so that we could bond, etc., was my insistence on having the baby breastfeed as soon as possible following his birth.  Oh and my greatest wish of all was nothing but breast milk for my baby.  PERIOD.  Everything that I had read warned of the "dangers" of introducing formula instead of or before breast milk.   My baby might not bond with me or he might grow horns or something.  Of course I would be the mom to let my baby lay on my chest following a picture perfect birth and let him leisurely find his way to one of my nipples as nature intended.  Then a silly thing called Murphy's Law came to fruition and I may as well have set that stupid birth plan on fire.

My unplanned c-section was a huge factor in me not following 95% of my birth plan.  Following my complicated surgery, I remember few things about those first hours of breastfeeding.  I remember shaking uncontrollably and struggling to keep my eyes open whilst my delivery nurse tried to shove my baby on my boob, try to make him latch, and explain to me how to breastfeed.  I couldn't even comprehend what was going on.  I was exhausted from a nearly 40 hour labor and 3 hours of pushing followed by the c-section.  The last thing I felt like doing was trying to get the hang of breastfeeding.  I wanted to be asleep.  Birth plan?  What birth plan?  Good night.

No one really prepares you for what to expect in those early days of breastfeeding.  Throw a c-section in the mix and you're screwed.  Add a raging case of PUPPPs and 2 blood transfusions and you're royally (pardon my French) F*CKED.  My hospital room became a revolving door for doctor's, nurses, lactation consultants, friends, and family trying to "help" me breastfeed.  During those first few days I found out that I had extremely small nipples, that milk doesn't come in as fast when you have a c-section, and that if your baby loses 10% of his body weight that they force formula on you.  Who knew?

Giving my son formula in the hospital made me feel awful.  Once again my body wasn't working right and I was going to forever change the optimal balance of bacteria in his little stomach with this "evil" concoction.  I cried as I pumped using the hospital's machine and saw only a few drops of colostrum fall into the cup after pumping for 30 minutes.  One of the nurses declared me an utter failure so I was determined to prove her wrong.  I pumped around the clock and had almost an ounce of colostrum saved up.  When I excitedly went to show my husband what I had done, I tripped and dropped the whole thing on the floor.  Don't cry over spilt milk?  Ummm I don't think that applies to colostrum.  I sobbed for several hours as the nurses and lactation consultants hooked me up with the SNS system and I watched my starving baby guzzle the formula.  F.A.I.L.

I thought that was as difficult as things would get with regards to breastfeeding.  My milk would eventually come in, my baby would get the hang of it, and we would all live happily ever after.  In a perfect world, this is what things might look like.  In reality, my milk came in with an evil vengeance.  My boobs felt like 2 hot rocks and my nipples were bloody with gross scabs.  I leaked (or rather sprayed) every time I took off my shirt.  I dreaded every 1.5 hours because it meant my barracuda baby would have to latch.  I tried the lanolin and gel pads, but thank God for nipple shields or I may have quit.  Thank God my mom was there to listen to me sob on the phone in pain.  She assured me it would get better...eventually.

To help boost the supply I thought might be low, I ate oatmeal every morning, I added brewer's yeast to everything, I chugged Mother's Milk tea, and made batches and batches of lactation cookies.  I even attended a weekly breastfeeding support group!  I would not let my baby and I become victims of a low supply.  No way!

It was around a month after my son's birth when I noticed him spitting up a ton around the clock.  He would choke on my milk when he was drinking and would writhe and wiggle with pain after each feeding.  I was lucky to keep him eating for more than 5 minutes on each side.  His poops were bordering on mucousy green.  The lactation consultant dubbed him a "BK drive-thru baby" and told me that I had an overactive letdown and (gasp) a potential over supply. She told me to stop the oatmeal, lactation cookies, and tea.  The pediatrician told me that it was either acid reflux or some type of an intolerance to what I was eating.  She told me to stop eating dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, and peanuts and to give the baby Zantac.  Oh, no problem!  Now I am that pain-in-the-ass person who has to look at the special menu or needs to lie about being allergic to soybeans because I am sure Johnny Server really doesn't want to get into a discussion about how what I eat affects my milk.  The kicker with all of this is that my baby still spit up a ton (poor kid lives in his multi-colored BRU terry cloth bibs) and still cried after he ate on many occasions.  So much for those solutions to the problem!

Breastfeeding in public is an art that I haven't been able to fully master.  Trying to position a squirming and crying baby on a boob under a hot cover-up is like trying to thread a needle in a low-light sauna.  Not comfortable and not easy.  Dealing with people staring at me makes me more angry than self-conscious.  Yes, I have boobs.  Yes, one of them is out of my shirt.  Yes, my baby is sucking on one of my boobs.  Take your stupid stare elsewhere and let me feed my hungry baby in peace!  Sheesh!

I came to find out that three month maternity leave goes by so very quickly and wasn't the 3 month vacation from work that I had imagined.  I blinked and I was back in the office.  Unlike coming back after a 3 month vacation, nice and rested, I was exhausted and loopy.  I soon learned that I had to fight with the daytime nappers to use the lactation, or "quiet" room, as my company calls it. Pumping every 3 hours during the day at work is tough.  Lugging the bag full of milk home from work is even tougher.  Cleaning all of the pump parts 3-4 times a day is a huge P.I.T.A.  For the first time, I realized that I missed nursing my baby.  I missed the comfort of looking at him happily sucking away and hearing him gulp.  I missed him lovingly rubbing my belly and pulling off to look at me with milk running down his smiley face.  I missed breastfeeding my baby.  

The truth is, my relationship with breastfeeding has been rocky.  It started out rough and then got rougher.  Through it all, I have learned this, nothing ever goes as planned, so put that silly birth plan in the circular file.  You need to learn to be flexible, adaptable, easy-going.  Just like any other skill, breastfeeding takes time to develop.  All of the planning, research, and classes in the world are not going to prepare you for your breastfeeding journey.

So if you are planning on breastfeeding your baby (high five if you are after reading this post :-), my one piece of advice to you would be to NOT listen to those people who claim that breastfeeding is a natural thing that just happens as soon as the baby is born.  Breastfeeding is hard and hurts and in the early days it just plain sucks.  Sometimes you need to supplement with formula.  Sometimes you need to switch from the breast to formula completely.  It's all ok.  You do what you gotta do to keep your baby healthy and growing.  Some of the smartest kids I know were straight formula fed.  I am happy that breastfeeding is finally working for me, but it may not be working for you, and that is ok.

If you are still breastfeeding than I am sure you can relate to some or all of this post.  There are ups and downs, but once you finally get into a groove it really does become second nature and possibly even an enjoyable way to connect with your baby.  Personally speaking, I am glad that I have stuck with it for (gasp) the past 4 months.  I hope to be able to continue until it makes sense for me to stop.