Here's another story from our recent Baby Friendly event, which I think nicely illustrates the impact birth can have on breastfeeding. Names and other identifying details have been omitted.
Ah, dreams and expectations! I suppose if our fantasy lives came true with any regularity, we would be insufferably arrogant. Giving birth and learning how to feed my baby were simultaneously the most humbling experiences of my life, and the ones that in the end, made me feel most powerful. Is there anything more remarkable than building a baby from scratch?
I went into labor at 7 a.m. on Friday morning, labored all day and into the night, with many stumbling blocks; and finally, with the help of beautifully intelligent hands (and sadly, forceps) delivered my girl at almost 3 o’clock the next morning.
She arrived angry. What I expected to be a beautiful moment of recognition between us, was in fact, protracted and inconsolable angry screaming. We were both battered from the trip. Her head was ridiculously long from the length of time she was stuck in the birth canal, and had 2 or 3 three big abrasions where the forceps had gripped her. I thought, “Yeah, I would be pissed too!” So instead of my smarmy Hollywood movie, I got the bucketful of knowledge that sometimes, you just have to show up. So I showed up. And held her, and offered my breast, which she summarily rejected. Or, it was not so much that she perceived it and turned away, but that she was still in such a state of chaos, that she couldn’t even take it in.
A little while later, after she had calmed down, and all the weights and measurements and other product specifications had been checked and crosschecked, they brought her back over to the bed, where we gave it another try. This time she latched beautifully, but immediately yanked her head back and started screaming. At the time, I was in a daze of hormones, pain (no pain medication), and I think, a little bit of shock, and I didn’t really understand why she pulled off. In retrospect of course, it seems obvious that she had some injury to her jaw from the forceps, and it just hurt to open her mouth that wide.
We tried and tried again; but each time she would pull off before she could really get a good gulp. Much of the following day was spent sleeping and trying to nurse. A lactation specialist came to see us. She was totally lovely and encouraging, and tried every trick in her bag. I learned some things that came in handy later, but none of them addressed the issue at hand. It seems so odd now, but I don’t think it occurred to any of us that my baby’s jaw might hurt.
The next day, her demeanor was so quiet, and her breath so shallow, it felt as though she was pulling away from the planet. It was clear she was not getting enough to eat; but I really REALLY didn’t want to feed her formula. We discovered she was very happy to suck a pinky, so I started pumping. We began giving her my colostrum from a little syringe attached to a long skinny flexible tube, taped to my or my partner’s pinky. She began to have a little more energy, but then her fontanel began to swell. There followed several days filled with terrifying medical prognostications and tests tests tests.
In the end, the lesson of Just Showing Up got driven home. Each step of the process I learned more and more not to take any of it personally, and to attend to our most basic needs as they arose each moment; and to make serious medical decisions from that same quiet place. I was in physical agony from the birth, but was interiorly as serene as I’ve ever been, before or since.
By the fifth day, with the help of a friend who is an osteopath, a craniosacral session (recommended by one of the nurses), and I think, just Time, the swelling had begun to lessen. And against the better judgment of the pediatrician handling her case, we were finally allowed to go home. After that, it took two and a half weeks of pumping, finger feeding, and trying trying trying to nurse, to really get her established at my breast. Two and a half weeks! It seemed like an eternity. But we did it. And what a small price to pay for feeling like the most powerful woman on earth.
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