Dear Emma,
You weren't a breast fed baby.
There's a saying that goes: "Fed is best! "It's become a bit of a slogan to discourage mom-shaming. For a long time, the saying went: "Breast is best."
There's a movement happening that is all about creating a rhetoric that is non-judgmental. It's a wonderful sentiment and I hope that long before you are my age, it’s become a social norm.
Now, we agree, nutritionally, emotionally, everything, breast is first prize. It's recommended that if you cannot exclusively breast feed that you express and bottle feed with your milk. If this too is impossible, formula.
The premise of "fed is best" is essentially to say, that whatever works for each family is what should be done. And, ultimately, the reasons for the decision made is nobody's business. Mommy and baby are happy, relaxed and nutritional needs are met, winning.
Now, here's what's great about momming in 2018... There really is an atmosphere of information sharing and acceptance. There seems to be an understanding that circumstances differ from home to home.
But, the beast on every parents back: guilt! We feel it gnawing at us constantly, regardless of what the neighbors are saying. This guilt is fed by the culture of so many who are yet to make a change. People who are blatantly rude and express their opinions on the matter. Opinions on how a mother nourishes her child are never welcome. They always hurt.
First, I don't owe anyone an explanation as to why I chose to formula feed you. But for the moms, like me, who would have or would one day like to, perhaps there is a lesson in my experience. And so, this is how you ended up on the bottle.
Immediately after you were born I began expressing like my life depended on it. Because your life depended on it. I was struggling but persevering to produce the 5mls of colostrum that you needed for your tube feeds. I had blistered and bleeding nipples and a hospital claiming that their lactation specialist had resigned.
My means of seeking support was reaching out to breastfeeding friends over voice notes. Friends whom I hadn't had the presence of mind to question before being in the thick of it.
And then I had good old Doctor Google. The internet told me to pump religiously.
Every 2 hours.
Stimulate my breasts.
Use warm compresses.
Power Pump.
I had never heard of power pumping! I was searching for answers while I pumped and praying while I poured your feeds into your tube that this was normal. That in 3-5 days time I would be a walking dairy.
There are factors that can affect a woman's ability to successfully breastfeed. And we faced, what felt like, all of them.
A quick Google search will tell you most of this.
Prolonged bed rest in pregnancy can negatively impact lactation.
So will prematurity and a woman's level of stress.
Add to that retained placenta, anemia and a lack of knowledge and you are starting on the back foot.
You and I were on strict hospital bed rest for 4 weeks before you were born.
You were born 6 weeks early.
This happened in a country that was still foreign to me, without any family or friend’s other than your dad.
You were taken from me within a minute of your birth to be incubated in the NICU.
This all makes for a highly stressed out first time mom.
10 days after your birth, as we were preparing for your NICU graduation, I was readmitted to hospital in very poor health.
I had struggled to deliver the placenta immediately after you were born. With help from the doctor, by forcefully pushing down on my belly, it was expelled and I was told that it was surprisingly small. I was not told, nor did I see any concern registering with my medical team that it might not be all of it. The short version of this is that I had retained and infected placenta and it would be 5 days, a D&C, 3 units of blood and an iron infusion that I refused, before I would be back home with you.
The first 2 days after I was admitted I cannot recall. While I drifted, waiting for my fever to be managed, we were lucky to have your dad and NICU nurses, bless them, manage your feeds by offering you formula and whatever they were able to express from me while I was delirious.
When we left hospital I still had had retained placenta. I had lost too much blood and the best we could do was follow this managed approach in the hope of it sorting itself out. Thankful that it wasn't so much worse than it could have been. Only now, with the distance of time and the knowledge gained by experience do I see the insurmountable mountain I was trying to climb on my journey to feed you.
The best decision I made was to stop. Until you were 2 months old, I was expressing every 2hours day and night. It was never enough. You were always heavier on formula than my breast milk. For a long time, I was expressing, knowing you would barely get more than a few sips. I was spurred on by guilt and ego. I was kidding myself, stressing myself and sacrificing the sleep that I needed in order to function as your mother.
After I gave up, it was another 2 months before I got a clear ultra sound showing that the placenta was finally dissolved. It had outlived my resolve. And I'm okay with that. Because you are thriving and I am alive.
Now, here is the kicker. (Queue dramatic music) This is what I feel so passionately about. Breast feeding is as old as time. And it's one of those things that are made easier by the shared wisdom of the mothers who have gone before us. And that wisdom, in my world, and I'll bet is so many others, is lacking! There are ways to change that, and I'm coming to it.
I believe, deep down, that if breast feeding was accepted as the normal, natural and healthy act that it is, I might have been more empowered to take control of your birth and my body and been more likely to succeed at feeding. Been less likely to haemorrhage for 10 days before realizing that something was wrong.
It's a poor analogy, but I knew how to puff on a cigarette the first time I tried it. I'd seen it being done every day, in some way, somewhere, by someone, every day throughout my life. Why then, in 2018, when a new mother is handed her baby does she need help from a third party to place her child to her breast? Doesn't that seem absurd? It is literally the most natural of practices in the history of our species.
Growing up and throughout my life, when someone in the company needed to feed their baby, they would slip away and do it privately. Using a room in a friend or family members home. A toilet at a mall! Other women in said company, who had themselves breastfed their young might go off with her to keep her company. Like a secret club.
I don't know what went on behind those closed doors, but I can only imagine that the conversation must have touched on the job at hand! Surely, they spoke of the baby's latch. Their shared their struggles and victories. If they had had a traumatic birth, or the birth of their dreams, that's where they would have discussed it. That's where the mom tribe would have shared their advice and referred methods and doctors and natural remedies. If one of them had experienced placenta accreta, they probably would have spoken about it in that room. With that kind of exposure, I daresay I might have been inclined to believe it my right to be successful at breastfeeding.
Normalizing breast feeding is about so much more than providing mothers and babies the freedom to share a dignified meal. It literally changes the conversation. Or at least, brings that conversation out into the open. It empowers and educates every passive observer. It lifts the lid on all of the wisdom locked behind the hostess’s bedroom door, in public toilets and on the other side of modesty screens.
Most of society would agree, that we all want what’s best for the youngest amongst us. If that is the case, then pregnancy, childbirth and lactation cannot be a secret. It's not a prized family recipe. It's the lifeblood of the next generation.
I would have loved to teach you all about breast feeding. If you have siblings and I succeed, I would be thrilled. But as it stands, I will be relying on our circle to share with you openly. From the start.
Age appropriate of course, I hope that our home is a place where everything is discussed freely. Menstruation, weird rashes, weird people, funny discharge, funny friends, sexual health, mental health... Let's put it all on table. Let's create a space where natural is normal. Because I never want your only point of reference to be information picked up on the school yard, google search results or a consultation you paid a stranger for.
All my love,
Mommy XO
PS. In writing this, for the first time I was confronted by the emotions that still exist for me around the issue of Placenta Accreta. I know that I need to spend time processing it and not leave it swept under the rug for me to stumble over one dark day in the future. I also know that awareness around it is necessary and something I want to be able to share with you. I've joined a few online support groups to learn what I can and to find my voice in it. When I'm ready I will share what I experienced and what I can with you my love. In the meantime, if anyone reads this and has personal experience, please get in touch with me on email. I'd love to talk!
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