Step Two: Trying to Nurture the New Soul

I suppose that 1000 years ago, Buzz wouldn't have made it in the world. If I waited until he was ready to come out (because in hindsight, I don't think my blood pressure issues were bad enough to really necessitate the induction), would the cord still have been wrapped twice around his neck, or would he have untangled himself when he was ready? Let's suppose that he would have figured it out. In this hypothetical situation before OB-GYNs,  he would have had another obstacle to overcome: getting enough nourishment to stay alive.

At birth, Buzz weighed in at 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Just as I had been eager to allow my body the opportunity to birth the way it was meant to, I was really excited to sustain the life I had made by nursing. Like most babies, Buzz lost weight before leaving the hospital. He was down to 6 pounds, 6 ounces when we went home. I had spent the requisite four days in the hospital because of the surgery, so I had plenty of one-on-one time with the hospital's lactation specialist. She showed me all of the positions and insisted that I would prefer to nurse lying down, as if it was possible to relax while feeding a tiny human from your own body. Anyway, Buzz knew what he was doing from the get-go; he latched without a problem and went about what his little body was hard-wired to do.

My body, however, failed to do what it was hard-wired to do once again. At the routine check-ups, Buzz had not gained back the weight he had lost, and so now it was time for the pediatrician to start intervening. She had us coming in for extra weight checks and she sent me back to the lactation specialist at the hospital. I felt like I was nursing all day, and my little guy was always starving and ready to eat. The first visit to the lactation specialist was a complete waste; she did some paperwork, watched our technique, and said that things would improve. It did not. That was the only visit that my insurance would cover, but I had a screaming baby that wasn't gaining weight. So on the next visit, I was instructed to get a good breastpump, to try Brewer's Yeast pills, to drink special tea, and to try nursing all night while sleeping. I was promised that "more milk would come."

I followed all the instructions and studied The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Making More Milk, by Diana West and Lisa Marasco. I went to La Leche League Meetings, where other mothers' stories about nursing made me feel inadequate. Meanwhile, my normal routine went like this: nurse for 30-40 minutes, feed with pumped breast milk, put the baby down, pump for the next feeding, and then wash out the bottles and pump gear for the next round, which would begin in another 15-20 minutes. After about four weeks of trying to maintain this schedule in order to produce more nourishment for my baby, Buzz was still not gaining enough weight, and he when he wasn't sleeping, he was crying. The pediatrician recognized that the nursing and the pumped breast milk were not enough, and we had to start supplementing with formula. That was when I hit bottom. It seemed that every mother I spoke to could brag about having a "freezer full of extra breast milk," while I tried to squeeze out enough to make it possible for Buzz to have half milk and half formula at every feeding.

Buzz at almost four weeks

Was I just not meant to be a mother? I had already failed at childbirth; why couldn't my body perform this other natural maternal function?

My anger over the c-section carried over into my disappointment over nursing. In fact, I started to connect the two. Since I hadn't had a natural birth, maybe my body wasn't ready to feed my baby naturally. Maybe the valuable bonding time I lost after the surgery stunted some hormone my body needed in order to get the whole milk-production thing going. I have no idea if there's any scientific evidence for either of those scenarios, but I'm convinced that the combination of the two had some effect on our feeding difficulties. How else was it possible that I couldn't take care of my own child?

I managed to nurse for 4 months, even though I had to supplement at every feeding. Everything I've read suggests that the breastfeeding experience can be different with each child. Can I even hope to anticipate a better experience with my second?