December 25, 2015

Dear Baby,

I’ll be honest, I don’t have a ton of new milestone-y things to tell you about your week. You have been continuing to do all the wonderful things that you have been doing; making me laugh with your laugh, rolling around, being a straight up bad ass baby.

I’ll tell you this- breastfeeding you has been a total pleasure. I NEVER thought I would be able to say those 7 words in a sentence but lo and behold, we have really gotten the hang of it and feeding you is a total breeze.

Our relationship between you and my boobs had a rocky start. Was it a bad latch? A milk supply issue? Was it the fact that no one tells you that having someone aggressively suck a super sensitive area of your body 4 million times per day is bound to cause chafing at minimum? Who knows.

I could not believe that not only was breastfeeding something that happened ALL DAY EVERYDAY for months but that people all around the world in all different walks of life for years and years did it. Did no one else feel the stinging pain of burning nipples? Did no mom before me feel like their boobs might just fall off if they had to feed one more time?

I thought about feeding you formula a million times in those first few weeks. I cried in the shower when the hot water burned my poor boobs. I mourned the days of having boobs that I never thought about. I sought out tank tops in fabrics that brushed my boobs in a way that didn’t feel like sandpaper. I Googled (obvi) ways to help make breastfeeding easier. I bought every single cream that was ever made for nipples.

Blood sweat and tears, Baby. Literally.

I even caved at one point and hired a lactation consultant who basically shamed me and told me that you were too alert a baby. She warned me about letting you go more than 2-3 hours without feeding, she warned me about having a baby that didn’t sleep every time they were not eating (you were pretty into being awake), and she warned me to NEVER let you sleep through the night for fear of losing my milk supply. She left my house taking with her $250 dollars and all of my confidence.

But then something amazing happened.

I took what she said and threw it right out the window. I stopped Googling, I stopped crying, I stopped stressing and VERY slowly, things got better.

Maybe I learned how to latch you better or maybe you learned it. Maybe my boobs became impervious to pain. Maybe being relaxed made more milk. Again, who knows but needless to say, the other night when I was feeding you I couldn’t help but think about how long it has been since feeding you was something I dreaded with every fibre of my being.

I can’t pinpoint the moment things changed for us but I can tell you that I’m glad I never threw the towel in and gave up on trying (side note- there is nothing wrong with formula feeding, breastfeeding was the personal decision I made about how I wanted to feed you- I don’t give two fucks about how other people feed their babies).

So on the occasion of your 14th week of life, I wanted to tell you that I am so happy that we worked it out and that our nursing relationship has grown and thrived. I think it is a lesson to try and stick with things and see them through.

Baby, not everything will go your way and sometimes, you will give up and walk away but the more you can try to see things through and the more you can persevere, the better you will be for it (even though your boobs may never be the same…)

xo

Mom