Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Not About Breast Feeding

My blog title does not refer to breast feeding in any way.  I personally am not a fan of that.  In fact with my first two children, I had the doctors dry me up while I was still at the hospital.  I often felt like such a minority in that I chose not to breast feed. This was back in the late 80's early 90's when society began to push breastfeeding on you.  I felt guilty sometimes when I talked with breast feeding mothers. They would gloat about how wonderful it was to breast feed.   They talked about how much they loved bonding with their baby, and best of all, you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to heat up a bottle.  (OK, I admit that part would have been nice.)  They said small breasts produce as much milk as large ones, so that shouldn't be my excuse.  That wasn't my excuse - My excuse was................ I DID NOT WANT TO BREAST FEED. PERIOD.

I felt I bonded just fine with my first two babies, and they were very healthy.  My husband did not really want me to breast feed either.  He wanted to be able to help with the feedings. (At least from the beginning anyway. During some of those middle-of-the-night awakenings, he might have thought otherwise.)  We  had one of those cardboard  'whose turn is it' dials.  It somehow always seemed be pointed to the 'mom's' side.  Then in 1998, my third child was born, and I caved to peer and societal pressure. Since this was the last baby I was planning to have, one of my best friends said it would be my last chance at it.  So I decided to give it a try, and my husband did not object.  WORST DECISION EVER!!!!

My third child was born at the beginning of June.  I was a teacher at the time so had my summers off.  (One of the reasons I went into that field.)  Perfect timing, the baby was born right after school got out.  I said I'd try the breastfeeding thing and commit for six weeks.  I lasted two.  I know many of you would say that I didn't give it enough time, but I hated every minute of it.  It hurt like heck.  I could not bond with my baby when I was so tense and my toes curled up every time I put the baby to my breasts. I thought I was going to go crazy and cringed every time the baby began to cry.  I did have a home health care nurse come for a visit once, but that didn't help either.  I felt like I was such a wimp, but I couldn't believe how much it hurt.  Not just uncomfortable, I could have handled that, but this was more pain to me than the actual child birth.

On the 14th day, the rest of the family went to my older son's baseball game while I took the baby to see the doctor. The minute the doctor walked in the door he saw the distressed look on my face.  When he asked how I was doing, I burst into tears.  He told me that I didn't have to breastfeed, wrapped my breasts, and off I went.  Back at home I sat down in the rocking chair with baby in my lap and bottle in hand.  It was at that moment when I began to bond with this precious little child.  It felt so right. 

So now that I got that off my chest (no pun intended), I can move forward with other posts that I intended for this site.

2 comments:

  1. I hate how society pressures mothers like that. We HAVE TO do what's right for us and our families, not what everyone else is doing. :)

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  2. Thank you for your feedback. I know breastfeeding is what is best for our babies, but not always best for the mom. It should be a personal choice without the pressure.

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