This is because I’m no longer breastfeeding.
Gasp, I know. As those closest to me know, I’m about as passionate as anyone about extended breastfeeding. There’s something that I’ve always found so amazing about it, even before I had kids of my own. It’s something that only a mother can do for her baby. It’s a special bond that only a mother and baby can share. And it’s beautiful.
Many of my friends and family do not even know that I am no longer breastfeeding Hailey, who is now 3 days shy of 14 months. That is because until now, it’s been too painful to talk about.
You see, my road with Hailey and nursing has not been an easy one. Despite a beautiful natural birth and immediate “success” with nursing, we have had many bumps along the way. From the beginning, I had frequent pain while nursing, particularly on one side. I attributed this to an insufficient latch on that side and trudged on. Hailey was always what I would call a “fast and frequent” nurser. She’d nurse for 5 minutes and then be done and want to nurse again an hour later. She had extremely bad reflux, and even though she was what they call a “happy spitter,” sometimes I was alarmed at how much she would spit up within minutes of eating. No wonder she was hungry again right away! She always made a “clicking” sound while she was nursing, something that lactation consultants assured me was just a result of a fast let-down. In addition to this, I was also plagued with frequent plugged ducts (we’re talking no less than 4 per week, and some taking over 24 hours to clear) and recurrent mastitis for the first 6 months of her life.
Around 4 months, I became suspicious that Hailey might have a lip tie or a tongue tie that could be causing these issues. These mouth abnormalities unfortunately are very common yet very, very under-diagnosed and it was only after countless hours of my own research, as well as a close friend going through the same process with her daughter, that I began to suspect this as the cause of all of our nursing issues. I took her to our family doctor whom I truly respect and before I could even tell him the reason I was there, he was shaking his head “no” that she could not possibly have either one of these issues. During our brief visit, he convinced me that I was just an over-worried mama. After all, she was above the 75th percentile for her weight and height, she looked healthy, was meeting all her milestones, so how in the world could she have an abnormality? I went home feeling unsettled but decided that he likely was right and that all of these issues were likely just in my head. Yet I still struggled with remembering that in 26 months of nursing Olivia I had only had plugged ducts maybe a handful of times. Olivia had only spit up 3 times during our entire nursing relationship and all three of those times were when she was under 1 month old and I believe she truly just took in too much milk.
So I went away from that day unsettled yet wanting to believe that there was truly nothing wrong and that we’d have a long and successful breastfeeding relationship that I desired.
What happened between 4-6 months was extremely difficult. My “over-supply” of milk suddenly started to dwindle. Breastfeeding professionals assured me this was “normal” as babies start to take in less milk at that time and that my supply was just leveling off to be more accurate for her needs. I tried to protest that it was REALLY dwindling and Hailey’s nursing sessions were getting shorter and shorter, yet to no avail. I began running through my freezer stash of milk like crazy. By the time she was 7 months, I had run out of my own freezer stash and resorted to borrowing pumped milk from two good friends to help supplement what I was no longer able to make for my baby. I was still nursing about 6 times a day, yet I was giving Hailey extra bottles of pumped milk between 2-3 times per day. I tried everything to increase my supply, including renting a hospital grade pump thinking that perhaps my pump was on the outs and all I needed was a better pump. I pumped after EVERY feeding for three months. I took every herb, tincture, pill, etc. to try and increase my supply. I did acupuncture. I did it all. We went on like this until March until I became so cranky, overwhelmed and exhausted at the constant pumping, nursing, bottle washing and fussiness that I just hit a wall. I knew I could not continue at this pace and still care for two children but my supply was continuing to dwindle. I finally decided that I would ask my midwives to call in a prescription for domperidone, a medicine that is used to help lactating mothers produce more milk. Despite the fact that this medicine is very safe, it is expensive and it’s hard to come by but I knew that if I wanted to continue nursing Hailey, I would have to take this. My midwives agreed to prescribe it and luckily we have a local pharmacy that compounds it so I was able to get it relatively easily. I began taking it in mid-March and within 3 weeks I noticed a huge increase in my pumping output. I was so relieved that now I was able to keep up with Hailey, yet I was still pumping all the time because despite me having more milk, it still didn’t seem like our nursing sessions were getting any longer.
By the end of April, our supply issues had virtually resolved but I still had an unsettling feeling that there was something causing Hailey to not want to nurse very long. And she was still getting hungry very soon after eating. In addition to this pattern in nursing, around 10 months we started some solids with Hailey. I had intended to do baby-led weaning with her so I started with some soft foods that she could pick up and hold and play with to allow her to explore new textures and tastes on her own. I quickly became nervous of this however because I noticed that with all the food she tried, no matter how small, she would gag. Sometimes she gagged so much that she would spit up. I began to make some purees thinking that perhaps she was not into the texture and maybe smoother food would be better. The purees were even worse. She could not figure out the spoon and the food would just come right back out of her mouth and she would subsequently gag and throw up. This went on for about 3 weeks before I realized that something, in fact, was definitely wrong and I started my search again for a dentist or professional who was familiar with lip and tongue ties in babies. I found a dentist locally who uses the laser (the preferred method for revising these issues) and made an appointment immediately. I was overcome with relief and yet filled with of a myriad of other emotions when she said immediately that Hailey had a “severe” lip tie and a posterior tongue tie as well.
All these months had passed and I had been right all along. Still, there wasn’t any reason to look back and think of the what-if’s, Matt and I needed to decide how we were going to proceed. While I definitely liked this particular dentist, she did not feel there was urgency in treating the upper lip tie until Hailey turned 7 and only felt it was necessary to treat the posterior tongue tie immediately. After some discussion, we realized that this was contradictory to everything we’d researched and that if we were going to undergo this procedure, we were going to do it all at one time. Sounds easy enough right? It’s a simple 90 second laser procedure. Well as I mentioned above, this issue, albeit becoming much more common, is highly under diagnosed and there are few dentists and providers who have the knowledge, let alone the laser capabilities, to perform such a procedure on a baby. The closest person to us was a dentist in St. Louis, which is still a 4 hour drive. After some thought and consideration, we decided to go with a provider in Michigan since we would be traveling to Michigan in July anyway to visit family. This option provided us with someone to watch Olivia while Matt and I went with Hailey to the procedure. Although this meant waiting two more months, we felt this was the right decision.
Hailey and I continued on the pattern of nursing/pumping/bottles all the way up through her 1st birthday. While most breastfeeding mamas look at reaching the year mark in breastfeeding as simply a milestone, I looked at it with excitement--we were so close to getting her revision done and breastfeeding was going to be so.much.better afterwards! Plus, I was excited to get into the toddler stage of breastfeeding which I had cherished with Olivia.
But on June 12th, a mere week after Hailey’s 1st birthday, she weaned.
At first, I didn’t know she had weaned herself, I thought it was a nursing strike. A few days went by and I realized that I had been only pumping and not nursing and that something must be wrong. I took her to our pediatric chiropractor, our family doctor, and called numerous lactation consultants. There was nothing anyone could find obviously “wrong” with her to cause her to stop nursing, yet I was assured that babies of her age do not abruptly stop nursing so it was most likely just a very long nursing strike. I religiously held out hope. I pumped like a fiend, I prayed, I did skin-to-skin and extra snuggling to try and get her to come back, but to no avail. By the time we left to go on our trip to Michigan, it had been 3 weeks of no nursing. By the time she had her revision done, it had been roughly 4.5 weeks and it appeared she was officially done.
Words cannot describe the devastation I felt once I started to process all of this. A good friend of mine told me that nursing is a relationship and that it’s normal to grieve when it’s over. Amen to that. After all the trials and heartache of the past year with nursing, I was so looking forward to breastfeeding on the other side of this revision that had held us back in so many ways. I was looking forward to ditching the bottles and gaining more time with Hailey without bottles, without pumping... just nursing.
I’ll never know the reason she stopped nursing. Perhaps it was because she cut 4 molars within 3 weeks after quitting and her mouth had been in too much pain? Perhaps it was because she started standing and pulling up and her brain development was taking off and taking bottles was just easier? Or perhaps it was, as the dentist who performed Haileys surgery put it, "just too hard for her to nurse and she finally just gave up."
I will never know what breastfeeding felt like after she had her revision. We are now 2.5 weeks post-revision and her mouth is healing nicely and we’ve already noticed an increase in the solid foods she takes in. I’m still pumping 4 times a day and giving her breast milk all day long. While the nutritional aspect of extended breastfeeding is a small part for me compared to all of the other aspects, I still intend to provide her with my milk as long as I’m able.
I share this story because I hope it helps someone else. I hope someone else reads this whose baby is far younger than Hailey and realizes that there could be an outside issue at play and that breastfeeding should not be this hard. Or perhaps, if there’s other mamas out there whose babies have self-weaned at a young age before they wanted them to, we can support each other. We can grieve together.
In the meantime, I will continue to grieve and try to embrace the 12 months we did share together. Breastfeeding is a gift, and one that is not to be taken for granted. I never did and I certainly never will.
Nurse on my friends.
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