Breastfeeding

I have been wanting to document this for a while, but never got around to it. I wanted to write about this topic that is very dear to my heart, and very special to me (as to most Mothers).

Before I ever had the privilege to breastfeed, I heard of many different stories – successful stories and not-so-successful ones. I peeped at colleagues who headed to the nursing rooms to do the deed and marvelled at what they're doing and wondered how exactly it was done. I heard from friends of how it hurts like hell and how a lot of perseverence is absolutely necessary in order to do it well.

When my turn came, it wasn’t smooth-sailing at the beginning. I mean, in hindsight, it was absolutely fine! But when I was in the midst of it all, being an overly hormonal first-time-over-anxious mother, all I could think of were the areas that I wasn’t doing well in, the shortcomings (some imaginary) rather than how well I was doing (to begin with, the fact that I was lactating!).

At every point in time, when I faced new situations (namely, when I first delivered, when I started expressing milk, when I headed back to work and had to learn/deal with expressing on-the-go...); oh, the stress I put myself through was unbelievable! Only after 6 months into this “job”, did I start to gain confidence that I was doing ok, that Kate wasn’t starving, that my milk was sufficient... only then, did I begin to stop worrying.

I recall 3 months into my breastfeeding journey, the husband and I went on a couple trip. This meant that I had to express milk around the clock to ensure that my supply didn’t drop. This posed challenges because I was inexperienced and I panicked everytime we strayed too far from our hotel. My stress and insecurity overwhelmed me so, to the point that I had a fight with the husband while on this trip; I still remember it vividly because the fight took place on his birthday. Boo.

I breastfed Kate for a year. For a whole year, she consumed only BM; and at the end of it, I was terribly proud and pleased with myself. I had done well.

Second time round, I was a lot, a lot more relaxed. The fact that I had done it before played a huge part; but this relaxed mood was applicable not only to breastfeeding – generally, I was a lot less anxious, and a lot more fun to be around (heh – yes, I know I can be a pain when I’m like that). Four months into breastfeeding Jake, I had to introduce formula to him because I could not keep up with his demands. Being a boy, his appetite was double than that of Kate’s and I was truly unable to keep up. I wanted to give up then, because it was easy to just stop; but I preservered on. I fed as much BM as I could provide, topping up the remaining feed with formula. I think this worked out to be one feed per day; then progressively more or less, depending on supply of BM.

In a blink of an eye, Jake turns 11 months in 2 days time. My target was to continue feeding him for a year, so that I’m fair to him as I did with Kate. But lately, he’s begun to reject me on occasions – perhaps my milk flow doesn’t suit his fancy or maybe he just doesn’t prefer the boob anymore. Whatever it is, I think I’m ready to stop; not too long to go now before I retire from breastfeeding.

I know that I will miss it, because it is truly the one thing that only I can do. I’ll miss the bonding with my child, the pride whenever my child burps with contentment after a feed. Breastfeeding is a miraculous and beautiful experience and I’m very thankful that I was able to do it not once, but twice with both my children.