On Weight. And Boobs.

Long, long post ahead. You’ve been warned.

I have a confession to make:

I don’t want to breastfeed anymore.

Okay, okay. Settle down. Put down the gun. Stop crying. Let me explain.

I had a truly magical and amazing breastfeeding experience with the twins. We weaned at 16.5 months because, for my own mental health, I needed to, not because I wanted to or was ready to. I loved nursing them. They were enthusiastic eaters (most of the time) and were easy and enjoyable to feed (most of the time).

But Amaia has been a problem feeder since day one. For the first few months, she had a constant and inexplicable loss of suction while nursing. It drove me batshit. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, since my lactation counselor ruled out tongue-tie. She always choked on my milk, screamed and arched her back after eating, popped on and off the breast constantly, and cried all the time. We both seemed miserable.

The look on Amaia

After that rough patch was over, we had a few truly beautiful, blissful months where nursing was all I remembered it being with the twins. She nursed frequently and fairly well. I was more confident and we happily nursed anywhere and everywhere. And while it was pretty awesome, I suspected she wasn’t quite emptying my breasts. I had to move her back and forth after she would pull away to make sure she got all the hindmilk.

And then . . . Well, things started sucking again (so to speak, har har). She began with the screaming, arching, and crying after feeding again. She would start and stop feeding, or reject feeding altogether. She seemed to hate nursing. I was a total wreck.

It got worse. She would pop and and off so much during the let-down phase that it would take forever for my milk to start flowing. She started getting impatient and pushing away from my breast when the milk didn’t come, which would stress me out, which would make my let-down take even longer, which would make her cry and completely reject the feeding, which would make me cry.

And I started to completely dread nursing her.

Still, I persevered. I was NOT going to give up before a year was up. Babies are meant to breastfeed and my simple task was to provide her milk. I was thankful, though, that by this point, she was finally taking solids — a milestone which took her a good six weeks to master after the introduction of solid foods (so do the math — that means she was exclusively breastfed for 7.5 mostly miserable months. Good god.).

Although she was a difficult case, she didn’t have problems with weight gain. Until we saw the pediatrician at 10 months.

Amaia had fallen completely off her growth curve. I can’t remember what the difference was now, but it was drastic. She had gained a mere four ounces in as many months. The doctor slapped her with the label that no breastfeeding mother wants to hear:

Failure to Thrive.

Failure. To. Thrive. Me? Amaia? Us? Are you kidding?!? Failure to Thrive was for schedule feeders, Baby-Wisers, mothers who refused to breastfeed their babies because it wasn’t convenient. I had shoved a boob in this baby’s mouth at the slightest peep since she was born. If anything, my twins were scheduled! How the hell do you explain this???

I was devastated. Mortified. Shocked. Depressed. Furious. Defensive. And ultimately, I felt utterly defeated. After all I’d gone through to that point, after the intense focus on nursing her despite the ongoing issues . . . The feeling of failure was overwhelming. A mother can provide her baby with the most basic of needs: comfort, clothing, shelter, and food. And I had failed at the most essential of those.

My baby was FAILING TO THRIVE in my care.

I left the visit in tears that day and immediately called my lactation counselor. After a 10-minute interrogation, she strongly suspected that Amaia had reflux the whole time.

Reflux. Never in a million years would I have thought it because Amaia’s wasn’t a spitter-upper. She didn’t vomit and she slept well. But apparently, it was still possible to have reflux without vomiting.

I called the pediatrician and hashed it out with him. I had never discussed with him all of the problems we’d had with nursing and solid foods. I always just assumed that it was an individual quirk, an “infant thing” that Amaia would outgrow. As miserable as it was, I assumed it was all no big deal. I was an experienced mother and was taking the laid-back approach this time around.  I had nursed twins. I knew everything, dammit!

From then on, I had to completely change my approach to nursing and feeding Amaia. I nursed her sitting almost upright. Immediately, she stopped crying after feeding. She was noticeably more content with nursing  (as was I) and would even comfort nurse — something she had never done. I added back nursing sessions and made sure she emptied my breasts.

I had to start examining every last morsel of food she ate. No more Mum-Mums, Puffs, Cheerios, or plain baby foods. It was all about real coconut milk, avocados, egg yolks, full-fat cheese, cream cheese, butter, olive oil, whole-milk yogurt, protein. I had to start reading the labels on baby foods and would only buy things that were at least 80 calories per serving.

I became obsessed.

And it worked. Since mid-October, Amaia has gained a little over three pounds. Every last ounce was earned with my blood, sweat, and (many) tears. She’s back on a normal growth curve (20th percentile on the WHO charts).

Additionally, I took her to a GI specialist and had FOUR VIALS of bloodwork taken out of my tiny little baby. (The phlebotomist took one look at her and asked how much she weighed — she wasn’t sure she’d be able to even take that much blood from such a small baby. Sigh.) Her bloodwork came back totally normal, with great iron levels and nothing out of sorts. But the GI doctor has ordered a feeding evaluation, citing that she’s a poor feeder and might be having something more going on with swallowing or texture issues.

So this brings us to today. Amaia now drinks whole milk, and I estimate she gets about as much whole milk as she does breast milk — probably 8 total ounces of breast, 8 of cow’s milk. She only nurses three to four times a day now. But aside from the first nursing session of the day, it’s pretty miserable and pointless. She gets a good bit of milk in the morning, but every other time she nurses for anywhere from 10 seconds to MAYBE two minutes per breast. She can’t be getting more than an ounce total from both breasts on a longer session.

Plus, she has started this weird habit over the past few days of stretching her arms straight against my chest so that she’s pushing me away — which, in turn, pulls my boob out and strrrrrrrrretches my nipple taut.

It feels really, really awesome. Especially when her teeth scrape against my nipple. You’ll just have to trust me on that one.

All I can conclude is that she’s just not interested in nursing anymore — and frankly, neither am I.

On the one hand, I feel like a complete failure. I really, really wanted to nurse for a long time this time, at least as long as with the twins, but preferably longer. I know that I have breastfed longer than 80% of mothers in the U.S. That’s awesome, right? I have given Amaia a lifelong gift that most children don’t get.  Yadda yadda.

But that’s not the point. I don’t breastfeed to get an award or for bragging rights. There’s obviously a major emotional component to breastfeeding, but I do it because human babies are supposed to drink human breast milk. That’s not meant to offend anyone — it’s just a fact. Even the cow’s milk she drinks is not designed for her gut. And to not be successful at it, to not even want to do it anymore because of such a poor experience over the course of over a year, feels really shitty.

But some days I end up so miserable, I’m convinced that I won’t even nurse her the next morning.

At this point, I’m just going to continue to do what we’re doing while focusing on ways to keep her calorie count up while relying less and less on my milk.

And I’ll be thankful that we made it this far, even though I mourn the nursing relationship and experience that I so deeply wanted.