When i was pregnant with my first baby, I knew I wanted to give us both the gift of an unmedicated, minimally interfered with birth. At the time, I didn’t know what to expect in the hospital, and unfortunately the staff that attended my birth did not seem attuned to supporting women striving for the type of birth I wanted. I endured that birth in survival mode, clinging to the only other thing I had envisioned for this birth: a Mamababy-led first latch during golden hour. When the nurse grabbed my breast and shoved it into my baby’s mouth and said “there ya go” without giving me a moment to initiate a feeding myself - before I even really got to meet my baby - I was devastated. Of all the events that happened during my birth, that may just have been the thing that left me in crumbs.
Moving forward, I was discharged from the hospital with a can of formula, a package of pacifiers, and birth trauma. My local WIC office required me to meet the lactation counselor who was in town 2 days after I birthed my baby. I tried to reason with them that being freshly postpartum I needed to stay home with my baby, but they told me they could not waive or postpone this requirement. I had such severe nausea after birth that I gave my baby away to my parents after our first night home and did not see her again until it was time for that WIC appointment. At our appointment, I sat blankly in a cold chair with my newborn baby sleeping in her carseat next to me, as the lactation consultant went on about how to massage a balloon-model of a breast to express milk. As her presentation came to a close, she invited the pregnant woman on the other side of the table to reach out with any questions, and told me to follow her into her office since I “must have questions”.
I didn’t have questions. I just wanted to be trusted to do anything for my baby without some sort of authoritative oversight. Nevertheless, I worked with this lactation consultant over the next six months as I tried not to be totally consumed by intrusive thoughts, depression, and flashbacks of my birth. I also started a new job less than 7 days after giving birth, had no breastfeeding role models, and was incredibly sleep deprived and lonely. My plans to exclusively breastfeed were squandered from that first day after birth, and yet part of me was driven to see an opportunity for reclamation through continuing to nourish my baby with my body like I dreamed of doing.
This journey was not an easy one. I felt pushed closer and closer to the edge as time went on. I dealt with suggestions to try different formulas, to pump and bottle feed, to switch to formula altogether. I dealt with suggestions to give my baby cereal in a bottle so she would sleep, to give her belly massages to counter the constipation from the formula, and to try all sorts of positions to prevent her projectile spit-up. I endeared being told my breastfed baby was being fed too much and not enough. I managed clogged ducts, engorgement, forceful letdown, and bites on a few occasions that left me icing my nipples. But I think what finally pushed me over was professional advice to give my baby purees at 4 months old - and feeling like I missed an entire chapter of my baby’s life through letting other’s people’s voices being louder than my own intuition.
At six months postpartum, I decided it was time to take my motherhood journey back into my own hands. I worked part time cleaning hotel rooms, where I would pump at least once per shift to maintain a milk supply and have enough breastmilk for my next day at work. The first thing I did when I came home was nurse my baby to sleep, since she would not nap until I came home. I started babywearing, and let my baby choose when she nursed and for however long she needed, instead of watching the clock. I stopped spending as much time with anyone who discouraged me intentionally or not. And for the next several months, I exclusively breastfed my baby.
To anyone else, this might seem like a small feat. Fed is best, and all that. But reclaiming this act of love for myself and my daughter transformed me from a shell to a mother who felt human again. It opened a gateway for me to start working with my birth story, and strengthened the bond I felt with my child. It was hard - and still is hard - to remember those dark days where I went through the motions and while I did love her, I was also numb and dissociated. I wasn’t able to be fully present, the way I wish I could have been, but reclaiming our breastfeeding journey brought light back to my eyes. The corners of my smile returned. And my soul felt a spark that I hadn’t felt since I imagined her being born into my own hands in our apartment. It was an irrevocable initiation all of its own, to be a truer version of myself that honored the wild wisdom within me.
About Lynnea
Lynnea is a mother of two, creatress of Mama Tuki Birth & Motherhood Support, and co-creatress of Healing Birth. Lynnea offers prenatal and postpartum support to women local to the Western UP of Michigan and Northern WI, as well as to all mothers virtually.
Connect with Lynnea
Instagram @healingbirth @mamatukibirth
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