*Originally posted in September 2015 – current day reflections added to the end
To breastfeed or bottle feed…that is the question. It seems like no “mommy war” is fought more vehemently than this one. Over and over again we hear “breast is best” from our doctors, from our mothers, from our friends, from groups specifically designed to support breastfeeding. This makes sense in our heads. Obviously, the milk specifically designed by our bodies to feed the babies that were nurtured inside our bodies is the best chance at providing health and wellness and nutrition for the little lives once they are outside our bodies. It almost makes you want to say, “Duh?”
It never runs out. Its the perfect temperature, texture and consistency. Add to the fact that it is free and basically its like winning the baby food lottery.
Except when it isn’t.
I love nursing my babies. With each pregnancy I look forward to nursing. Not just for the nutritional value or the protection against sickness (which is great) but for the bonding. That special connection, both physical and emotional, between a mother and her baby. There truly is nothing else like it. For me, breast is best.
Except.
For the last 5 months I have been struggling with breastfeeding. Mind you, this is my 4th baby. I have started out nursing them all. The first two made it until well after their first birthday’s before they were weaned to whole milk. And although it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, there were no major hurdles to overcome (well, aside from the fact that my first born wanted to eat like every hour. That was exhausting.) The 3rd little monkey was very busy starting around 9 months old and could not be bothered to be still to nurse at all. Ever. After a 3 day strike he basically weaned himself against my will, and we went to formula for the duration. I remember feeling like a little piece of my heart had died. It had happened so suddenly and it took me by surprise. I hadn’t seen it coming. One minute he needed me – the next he didn’t.
This 4th time around has been a doozy though. You would think with each child you get better at this kind of stuff. But that is just not the truth at all. Some things you get better at. Like holding a baby while you sign the homework folder and brush the toddler’s teeth all at the same time. But mostly, you just learn to accept that every child is different and you will never know it all and as soon as you think you’ve got it all figured out, God sends you a child that makes you laugh at yourself for ever thinking those thoughts. That was my sweet baby E. Although in truth, there has been more crying than laughing.
He latched right on in the delivery room. The doctor and nurses even commented on how impressed they were that we were doing so well, so quickly. After a rather eventful pregnancy and delivery (to put it mildly), these precious moments, holding this sweet little boy close to my heart, meant more than mere words could ever describe.
After we got home we found ourselves on a schedule pretty quickly. He liked to sleep a lot during the day and would cluster nurse during the night and in the wee hours of the morning. I loved this precious time, just one on one with him, and wasn’t even bothered by the lack of sleep. By 3-4 weeks old he was sleeping in 4 hour stretches at night and I wasn’t even sure what to do with myself. I had never had a newborn baby be so easy to attend to (but that is another blog for another day). Except that sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes it seemed like everything would fall apart – for just no reason at all.
There were occasional nights where he would be up all night long screaming in pain. I could never figure out the cause and it would just seem to last forever and then he’d be totally fine the next morning, like nothing ever happened. And then he would have days where he just fussed and fussed and cried and cried and I felt like all I did for the entire day was “survive until the next crying fit”…but by bedtime he was totally peaceful. It seemed so random, and yet not. I began to pay attention to the things I was eating and sure enough I noticed that on the nights I had cookies and milk or ice-cream as a snack before bed, we had a bad day. Or on the days where I had maybe too many cups of tea or an extra cherry coke, he was up all night. It was then I began my elimination diet. It was a process. One thing at a time, starting when he was just about a month old. First to go was caffeine. (As a mother of 4, you can imagine how easy that was to give up) And then milk. And ice-cream. And then Mexican food, broccoli and cauliflower, garlic, and eventually tightened the reins on things like cheese (which included pizza, in salads, on sandwiches), chocolate (ugh…which contains milk AND caffeine) salad dressings, and finally my prenatal vitamins. I had gotten to a point where it felt like I was on a bread and water diet…
And while I noticed an immediate change…it still wasn’t enough.
Some suggested that maybe my supply was too low. That he wasn’t getting enough to fill him up and that’s why he was so fussy. So I took supplements. And ate nursing cookies like they were going out of style. And drank so much water I was pretty sure I was going to float away. I had so much milk I felt like a dairy farmer – that only seemed to make the problem worse.
So it was suggested that I pump the milk out and feed him directly from a bottle a few times a day. So I did that too. I pumped and pumped until I was so sore it hurt to wear clothes. But I just wanted it to “work”. Pretty much any suggestion someone threw my way – I tried.
As time went on, not only was the milk itself upsetting him, but how he was getting it did too. He was showing symptoms of reflux so we started a prescription of Zantac. And I tried to keep him upright for 30 minutes each time he ate. Oh, and the gas drops. He got those before he would nurse, after, and sometimes in the middle. Basically it took all of this each and every day to try and manage his crying (also pictured are teething relief methods…because that too was thrown into the mix as a possible cause).
I discovered I have a forceful letdown and an imbalance in the hindmilk/foremilk (which I didn’t even know was a thing until recently) so I tried pumping each time for a few minutes before nursing him, and when that wasn’t totally working I did some researching, contacted the LLL, and tried a different nursing position which provided him improved comfort, but no solution. It was awkward, hard to do in public, required careful attention, and sometimes he just didn’t like it. But I was determined.
Now I just had to keep juggling all of these balls without letting a single one drop. This is what my sweet baby looked like when I first starting “juggling.”
Sitting up, smiling, laughing, eating cereal…he’s growing so fast. And I’m missing it. I’ve spent so much time over the last almost 6 months “juggling” that I am missing him.
This road for me has been paved with so much struggle and heartbreak. The realization that I was basically poisoning him; that all of his troubles were caused by me; hit hard. I was a wreck. After months of listening to him cry and do everything I possibly could to try and “fix” this…I just didn’t know what else to do, so I gave him some formula. I did not handle it well.
Somehow I felt like giving him formula was failing him. Like I was a terrible mother because my body was doing this to him and how selfish it was of me to continue nursing when I knew it was causing him so much pain. But I just wanted to nurse my baby. And for me, breast is best.
Except.
He took to the bottle so well. SO well. He chugged the whole thing down, without any crying or fussing. Had an easy burp and drifted off to sleep. I won’t lie, part of me was hoping that he would hate it. That he would still scream and cry and then I could be like “see – it didn’t work”…I was so afraid that he would love the bottle more than me and I would have to instantly wean him, that I almost didn’t want to try again. Even though I knew it was better for him.
Fortunately I have amazing and supportive friends…and what you can’t see is the overwhelming show of love and support as a response to these desperate texts (I text a lot). So even though I’m basically a puddle every.single.day – they offer me some sunshine.
Sometimes I wonder why it is that this mothering bit is so hard. Not just the day to day grind, which yes, can be difficult. But really what I mean is more of the inside stuff. In our heads. In our hearts. How is it that we give and give and give of ourselves until there is nothing left and at the end of the day still feel like we are horrible failures? How something can be so beautiful and terrifying at the same time? How the same little people that fill us with so much love and joy can also bring us to our knees in sadness and grief and heartache?
“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;” Genesis 3:16a. KJV
Sorrow. In sorrow we will bring forth children.
Most other translations interpret this to mean that physical childbirth will be painful. But what if it’s more than that? What if the sorrow, as described here in the King James Version, is literally just that: a feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others – birthed into our hearts over our children?
Part of our sorrow could be that our bodies no longer are the perfect housing and nourishment for our children. That the resulting brokenness from sin would even be able to reach inside the womb. And because of that, some women die in childbirth. Some babies do. Some women can’t even get pregnant. Some women can get pregnant – they just can’t stay that way. Some desperately want children and can’t seem to have them. Others can easily conceive and yet have no interest in doing so. Some chose to terminate. Some women have no desire to nurse their babies, or are repulsed at the very thought. Some, like me, so desperately want to nurse but for whatever reason just can’t seem to get it right. All of this struggle. All of this hardship…all of this sorrow…has been heaped on us and we carry the heavy weight on our shoulders.
Maybe this is what makes us constantly doubt our abilities as mothers? Could this be what keeps us looking sideways and backwards to figure out what everyone else is doing right and what we are doing wrong? Is this “sorrow” why we are up at night weeping over the decisions we’ve made that day, worrying for the ones we have to make tomorrow, and has us on our knees begging God to provide our children a bright future in spite of how badly we might have messed up?
Will this sorrow ever end?
I am reminded of Paul, as he prayed for God to remove the thorn from his flesh…
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you…” 2 Corinthians 12:9a
I have prayed and prayed for God to heal whatever is causing my nursing troubles. To just take it away. To “fix me” somehow so that everything would work the way it is “supposed to” and that my desire to nurse my baby would be granted and I could stop living in sorrow over this child.
The answer I have received is the same as it was to Paul. My grace is sufficient.
I don’t know why I am going through this. Maybe there was something I needed to learn. Maybe it was all so that I could write this post and touch the heart of someone else who might be struggling just as much as I am. Maybe this is all somehow part of the bigger picture of my story and I will never know how this piece fit into the puzzle. Maybe granting my desire to nurse isn’t really the “fixing” that I need?
Here’s what I do know: I’ve got His grace; and it came with a side of formula.
It’s been about 3 weeks now and things are starting to look up.
He’s happier. Sleeping better. I’m less stressed out. Our days are just more enjoyable. Nights – we are still working on.
I’m still comfort nursing him. According to his needs. At night. When he wants to snuggle. In those moments when it’s more about momma, and less about food. But the “fill-his-belly-nourish-his-body” heavy lifting, I leave to the bottle. And you know what? Instead of spending my days keeping food journals and obsessing over what I ate or didn’t eat, or what might have accidentally been in something I that wasn’t labeled – I play peekaboo. Instead of depriving my own body to the point where my hair falls out and my fingernails break off and I am tired and weak all of the time- I just eat. And nourish myself. So that I am physically able to care for my baby. (And my other 3 children and my husband). Instead of closing my eyes and wishing away the hours, fearful of the uncontrollable crying and screaming that could begin at any moment – I tickle his toes and blow raspberries on his belly.
Instead of just making it through another day – I am enjoying every minute with this precious blessing God has placed in my care.
To be honest, it’s not all sunshine and roses. My heart still has moments where it feels very heavy, mourning the partial loss of this time with my baby. Where Satan steps in and whispers to me that I am a failure. That I am letting my son down. That I am not good enough.
But in those moments is when I most need to rely on the strength that only God can provide. You see the best part of that verse is actually how it ends…
“…for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”2 Corinthians 12:9b
I can’t do this without Him. On my own, I am weak. The weight of my fear and doubt and guilt is crushing. But oh what marvelous grace. God sent His son Jesus to take that from us. To redeem us. To remove our guilt. To lift those burdens from our shoulders. To release those doubts and fears. And instead replace them with His grace.
And one day, there will be no more weakness. Our bodies will be perfect again. Everything will be as God originally designed it to be. But for now, I am ok with being weak, if that means He will be my strength.
“Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10
To all the momma’s out there that might be struggling, hear this.
YOU ARE A GOOD MOM.
Love your babies.
Love Jesus.
And know that His grace is sufficient.
01/2025 – Just a few weeks after this post was written I found out my husband was being sent overseas on a work trip for three months. A few weeks after he left I fell and broke my wrist. We also had a stomach bug rage through our house and take down all four children, and eventually me, plus the largest snow fall we had seen in years, leaving me with water leaking from the ceiling and more shoveling than my broken wrist could manage. I had to rely heavily on the love and support of friends and neighbors to get through this season without completely coming unglued and what made everything just a bit more manageable was that E was a happy and content baby who could be fed and cared for by anyone. He was no longer tied to me or to nursing, (which given the narcotics I was taking to relieve the pain from the break could have been quite problematic) and I was able to leave him in the care of others without worrying about his crying or fussing or discomfort. Additionally the ability to leave him allowed me the opportunity to actually join my husband overseas for a short trip. The time alone we were able to invest in one another helped to sustain and strengthen our marriage during this extended time apart and afforded me an opportunity to see a piece of the world I might otherwise never have experienced. God’s hand of blessing was all over this season, I just couldn’t see it at the time. He knew exactly what was coming ahead for me, and for my family, and His sovereignty was over each and every piece of the puzzle. What only hindsight could reveal to me was this moment of great struggle and sorrow in my story as a mother now serves as part of my testimony to the goodness, graciousness, and sovereignty of our intentional and purposeful God.
I have since done more study of the original Hebrew word translated in the King James as sorrow – ʿiṣṣāḇôn. This word is also translated as toil, pain, labor or hardship and is the same word used to describe Adam’s relationship with the ground after the fall. The way men toil and labor in their work, so too we toil and labor in our work as mothers. Not just to bring children into the world, but every thereafter once they have arrived. It is part of the brokenness caused by sin. But in Christ all things are made new. Our mothering is made new. Strengthened. And given holy purpose in the training of our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. What was broken is restored in Christ. And that is really what is best.
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