Breastfeeding: Aversion's Loot.

20^th August 2013

Today is a big day for me. A sad day. Today is the day I’ve accepted that I am coming to, if not at, the end of my breastfeeding relationship with my daughter; my first born.

           
I knew, before she was born, that there could be problems; that breastfeeding didn’t always come as naturally to women as one might think. I spent time in the lead up to her birth collecting small syringes of colostrum so that, in the event of any issues in her first days of life, she would still be able to have some of that ‘liquid gold’.

During her first week, her appetite proved to be just as it has continued to be: big and enthusiastic! Due to the fact she was getting plenty and my milk was coming in fast, I think the latch was overlooked somewhat. This led to a battle against pain and tears while feeding and learning the correct way to latch her on.  About a week in and I’d got my first dose of mastitis.

I seemed to have an oversupply but always felt grateful that, at least, I had milk. 6 weeks in and I got mastitis again, badly. It came on overnight and by morning I was a feverish wreck!

Still, on we went, it was only a minor set back in the grand scheme of things. Somewhere along the line we discovered I also have Raynaud’s. I assume it is a relatively mild case, but it could still be uncomfortable at times. However, for the most part, I enjoyed it. I remember the overwhelming flood of hormones that, at the extreme, could leave me almost breathless; it was a rush. A love rush.

There were times, too, when I longed to be free from her latch. Lying for unknown amounts of time in the dark, trying to get her to sleep, wishing I was doing something else. Anything.

But, mostly, it just carried on. I thought the hard parts were over. Aside from a few adjustment issues when her top two teeth came in, she fed well, I had a good supply and all was good and I envisaged feeding her til she was 2, at least, and maybe until she weaned herself.

At about 9-10 months in, I started to have trouble. Sometimes when she’d feed, as well as a bruised feeling when she was latched, my body would recoil. I would be overwhelmed with conflicting feelings: anger, disgust, claustraphobia. I’d have to bundle her hands away so that they couldn’t touch me. After a month and a half of this, my period arrived. Aha! I thought. Hormones! Surely now it’ll start to even out?

From then on, it came on and off and, I gathered, in synch with my cycles. So, I’d get about two weeks of it and then a couple of weeks respite. This, coupled with some pretty rotten night time wakings (we considered night terrors, amongst other things) was leaving me pretty exhausted and my nerves were frazzled. During a 6 week trip to the UK to visit my family (my husband had to stay behind, so night’s were mostly a solo adventure) I came to the realisation I needed to do some kind of night weaning, or risk losing my sanity altogether.
We took it slowly, but were making progress. To be honest, though, much of it came from my aversion to feeding increasing and causing me to have little choice in the matter at times. But, as our night feeds dropped dramatically, I had a surge of energy. I felt alive!

Then, I got pregnant. Which is fine. But…..

The energy disappeared. I probably felt human for about a week, two max. And then, of course, there was the aversion. The sickly, creeping, crawling aversion. One feed I let go on too long ended with a sudden explosion of it, mostly in the form of rage, and I abruptly unlatched my daughter, rolled away and punched a wall. My husband said it was time to stop. But, I wanted to keep trying. I wanted to keep providing the one thing that I knew was meant to be perfect for her, through sickness and health.

About 6 weeks into the pregnancy and the nipple pain started, then increased. So then, the feeds went like this:

30 seconds of eye watering, groan-inducing pain and then, as it subsided, the aversion crept in. Well, I say crept, it was much more of an assault. So then I’d be left with the trapped feeling; the body clenching, breathing-madly-through-the-teeth, pillow-punching disgust/anger medley. If I lasted two minutes before having (and I mean having) to unlatch, I was lucky.

And now, here I am. I never envisaged it like this. I imagined her gradually wanting less and less milk from me, and gently, in her own time, she’d have had enough. And that would be that. Instead I feel as if I’ve been prised away from doing something I really want to do for her, and she really yearns for, by my own body…in a most unpleasant way. I am grieving. I am lucky in many ways, I know, but I am still grieving for the moments I thought were still to come, which are now just a dream.