Wrong.

With my first baby, the thought that I wouldn’t be able to feed never entered my mind. I don’t know why, I guess I didn’t want to overcomplicate nature with classes, books or buying a tin of formula ‘just in case’ etc. In fact, the thought of taking a breastfeeding class before you’ve even had a baby seemed ridiculous – you’re born with boobs, they have a job to do, you shove one in your newborn’s mouth and they drink right?  And it looks like this, all dreamy and lovey dovey, staring into each other’s eyes.

Breastfeeding photo by Aurimas Mikalauskas

I had it all planned out, I would feed baby for 12 months, and when I returned to work, just pop down to daycare and feed her on my lunch break – easy right? And you know what? Dumb luck for me – it totally was easy. Baby came out, found her way into the boob and 18 months later I had to go and get myself a nasty case of meningitis, where I enjoyed three luxurious nights drugged up in hospital just to wean my ravenous milk piggy. Note: I do not recommend a painful brain disease as a method of weaning your toddler.  As much as I was done feeding and I wanted her to stop, the abruptness of it all, knowing that she’d nursed her last nurse without any fanfare to mark this momentous occasion in our partnership left me kind of sad.

In any case, at some point I chucked out a whole unused tube of nipple cream and wondered what all the fuss was about.  All these people who give up feeding because of pain or latching problems etc must just be soft.

Wrong.

When I found out I was expecting baby number two, I was very much looking forward to the incredible bonding that breastfeeding offers. The dark snuggly midnight feeds where you catch a shadowy glimpse of a cheeky smile when they see what’s coming for their face. The one-on-one time where the world fades away as you study those ears wiggling as they swallow, and the milk dribbling from the corner of their mouth when they are finished and fall back milk-drunk in your arms. The sense of pride that you are singlehandedly continuing to grow your human that you already grew for the past 9 months. For a tiny person’s ouchies, bumps and bruises, a breast feed is like a cuddle on steroids.

Baby no 2 – come at me – I got this

Wrong.

The caesarian arrival of no 2 did not help kickstart our breastfeeding relationship. It was over an hour before I got to ask permission to feed my little girl. For the first few days she struggled, falling asleep at, or falling off the boob. I just thought she was a chilled little bub and at 4.15kg, she was a big baby, so I wasn’t too concerned about her weight. I’d been a world champion breastfeeder not that long ago, so I figured I didn’t really need the advice of the hospital nurses who kept coming in every five minutes to check her latch. I never thought I’d hear the words, “you just feed her on that side while I hand express some from your other nipple.”

Wrong

So to avoid them wanting me to syringe feed her, I started to lie and say I’d just fed her and she had fed fine. Little did I know that this terrible feeder would continue on in this fashion once we got home and I’d soon be begging for help.

By the second or third night at home I was crying in pain with the worst bleeding and squashed nipples you’ve seen. My husband made me go out and buy some nipple shields, which did make things less painful for me but she still wasn’t feeding any better. She had milk dribbling out of her mouth, was clicking, sucking in and swallowing air like nobody’s business, letting go or often just screaming at the sight of a nipple. Some awesome comfort I was to my very unhappy little colicky human. This was not what I had in mind when I imagined breastfeeding. It was traumatic for both of us.

“Put her on the bottle”, I hear you say… You and every other ‘expert’ commentator who would weigh in when they’d hear of our struggle. If only it was so simple. A bottle was almost as disastrous as breastfeeding – except at least it gave my poor boobs a break. Again, she’d be on and off the bottle take forever, dribble, gag, splutter, turn her head away and suck in air ending up with out of control wind pain / colic. In the middle of the night, between screams, my husband would comment that it sounded like she was drowning in milk. Not to mention the additional stress and strain that expressing and washing all those bottles and pump puts on an already time poor mum (I wasn’t ready to try formula yet).

I gave in and made an appointment with a lactation consultant at around 1 month old. Her brilliant suggestion to “swap sides”, was not exactly what I’d paid $100 to hear. And I felt like that was the end of the road, like I’d exhausted my last course of action. But one thing she commented on was Edie would curl her top lip inwards, and she encouraged me to flip it up. Of course, I couldn’t. She physically could not flange out her top lip, therefore could not create a seal. Nothing more was said at the time – completely remiss, because if diagnosed correctly as an upper lip tie at this stage, this could have saved months of heartache.

Where does this road lead? Well this is an ongoing battle in which we have made some progress. Given the next tangent in this story is in itself a novel, I’ve cut this post into two parts to keep on topic – my point here is that breastfeeding is NOT always a piece of cake, and no two babies are the same. If you see a mum out there preparing formula for her tiny baby, please don’t judge her, you don’t know the journey they’ve been on, breastfeeding can be bloody hard.  To read more about our own journey to deal with what ended up being an upper lip tie and its partner in crime, a posterior tongue tie, stay tuned, the second part of this blog post is on its way.

Photography: Aurimas Mikalauskas @Flicker

After a lovely “last supper” as a twosome (I had roast pork and crackling, a last ditch effort to get things moving – crackling is an old wives tale to bring on labour), instead of catching some zzz’s in the bank for later, we very stupidly stayed up til 11.30pm watching a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon. I was way too excited to sleep, but would live to regret that choice. Seriously though, what the hell was I even thinking?

We get to Pindara Hospital at midnight for a scheduled induction (4 days overdue and some other medical reasons I won’t go into here). Gel is put in at 12.30am, and I’m punched in the stomach with medium contractions almost immediately. As we are clearly in some kind of weird opposite-to-logic universe, hubby is sent home and I’m left to “sleep”. I couldn’t sleep due to pain and also not surprisingly could not get comfy in a hospital bed in a weird, not-too-homely delivery room.

After feeding our puppies and (oddly?) stopping to get petrol (oh that’s right, and my grape Hubba Bubba I all of a sudden needed) on the way back in, it seemed like forever until my husband was back by my side and finishing my hospital breakky, the start of which I’d already vomited into the bin. I was 3cm dilated when they checked at 7am and my waters were broken, super strong and regular contractions had started. I was still vomiting heaps and in loads of pain so they gave me the epi around 8.30am, it was pretty straightforward but really only took the edge off – I could still feel most pain and move my legs etc, not really what I thought an epidural would be like.

I was checked by the midwives again at 11am and was 7cm, I was told bub would definitely be here by lunch – no induction drugs necessary – woo hoo! I was totally doing this thing. But alas 3 hrs later I was still only 8cm, so they gave me the syntocinon drip anyway, and by now the epi was almost doing nothing, I was in so much pain – I begged the midwives for an hour and when he popped his head in for 2 seconds my OB finally topped me up and it was magic – no pain at all, now that’s what it’s supposed to be like!

I was finally ready to go now, but my obstetrician was held up with another lady (who I could hear screaming like a banshee across the hall, again I’m in opposite universe – exactly not what I wanted to hear right now), so it wasn’t til 3pm that he appeared and I started pushing. The previously non-existent epi was so good now that I couldn’t feel when to push, or whether the pushing was even working. Although no longer transverse, Clover was still posterior so we struggled to get her moving at all for a bit. My doctor decided to use a ventouse (vacuum) to assist her to come down, and unsurprisingly I needed an episiotomy – epidural or no, this still hurt like a bastard!

Side note: A lot of women would hesitate at the suggestion of either of these interventions, or even the induction itself, but I am one of those mums who puts themselves squarely under the control of their health care provider – this guy had delivered thousands of babies, I’d delivered precisely none – who was I to do anything other than exactly what he thought necessary? Plus I really don’t think positive thoughts and aromatherapy candles were going to shift this back-to-front and sideways lodged human from inside me.

So anyway, I blindly pushed for about an hour and was actually surprised she when came out – like I’m sure every pregnant woman probably does, I honestly thought she’d be in there forever! I’m not a pessimist at all, but the whole time, I was half expecting to be rushed off to theatre to have her cut from me. The fact that she wasn’t felt like some kind of human triumph – the whole experience very empowering.

As she was lifted up and placed on my chest, my husband cried (sorry buddy but it’s true) and she found the boob by herself pretty much straight away, she even got grumpy if we took her off (lil piggy)! I will never forget the seemingly never ending moment of staring into the huge dark blue eyes of my new creation, and the smell of her (it’s still fresh in my memory like it was yesterday). I barely noticed about a billion stitches being done down the business end (in the OB’s words “too many to count” – I certainly noticed them later haha) but she was and is so worth it, I feel truly blessed, there is simply nothing like this in the world.

Originally written 10 January 2012.

I’ve been wrestling with my decision to have a caesar since I first laughingly dismissed the very mention of it in the ob’s office at around 36 weeks (me…caesar? Hah! I laugh in the face of your suggestion you crazy doctor, don’t you know I already pushed a small human out of me just over 2 years ago? I got this in the bag!). Anyway, this form of mummy guilt is now slowly fading in comparison to all the many other forms of mummy guilt that suddenly sprout when you have a newborn, but that’s another tale.

I was calmer throughout this whole second pregnancy. Having birthed an above average sized baby already I felt more prepared, in control and was even looking forward to going through giving birth again, particularly the excitement of going into spontaneous labour, as my first was an induction.

So at 40 weeks, after having some mild contractions I was in the OB’s office for a full term checkup to be told I’m already 4cm dilated and ready to go into full labour at any given minute. How exciting! Finding out your baby is measuring 4.5kg/10lb and baby’s head is bigger than the ultrasound can measure somewhat sets the heart racing, but then comes his biggest concern, she’s transverse/shoulder down and her giant head is not budging. She was also compressing my bladder and urethra and so he wanted her out sooner rather than later.

So elective C-section is put before me as a choice – not an order, a choice. You can’t help but feel like actually personally making this decision – the one not to even try and attempt a vaginal birth – is somehow cheating or letting the team down. Furthermore, once done, there’s this crazy and completely irrational urge that you have to justify your choice to other people. But let’s face it, not many people make this call lightly – at the end of the day, it is a choice you make for all the right reasons after considering all possible outcomes – you give ‘informed consent’.

In making yourself informed, you have to carefully wade through all the “pro-vag” propaganda – yes, it exists (no, not all c sections are because the doctor wants to get to golf), as well all the well-meaning “you can do it” cheerleaders (those superhuman home birthing machines who just assume that mind over matter and an aromatherapy candle are going to turn my transverse, giant toddler baby). Note to those in this predicament: don’t watch “The business of being born”.

Going against what you want and had planned on for nearly 9 months (in my case a vaginal delivery, and that overwhelming sense of achievement that comes with it), and sacrificing your own desires for the good of the baby with the safest outcome is of course the less selfish option – it’s what being a mother is truly about.

Anyway, I feel like I do have a ‘birth’ story to tell and that it might help others struggling when faced with a similar choice. Bubba is asleep and due to wake up for her midnight snack. So I’m in that no man’s land between going to bed now in the hope of catching a few much needed zzzs (and inevitably being woken the millisecond after I drop off), or waiting for her to wake up and invariably sitting around with my eyes hanging out for hours as she has the best nights sleep she’s ever had. So I figure now’s the time to get my thoughts down.

So we’re all checked in to the baby shop, I mean hospital. The wait was too long – everyone was running late and I was a 40 week starving hormonal, emotional wreck. There were sudden tears in those minutes just when I knew it was a moment of no return, sitting in my paper undies in the holding area just before they wheeled me in. They came from nowhere and I couldn’t stop them. Part of it was fear and partly just because I knew this was now happening and I wasn’t just going to go into labour naturally and just sneeze the baby out, proving the ‘expert’ wrong.

The whole thing was actually weirdly painless. Even the spinal block going in didn’t hurt a bit. Until the hell that was recovery some hours later, the thing that hurt the most was having the cannula put in. The anaesthetist was awesome. Dr Brown, or Dr Brown Bear as I’ll always think in the voice of Peppa Pig in my head. One thing I remember laying on that icy metal slab was how cold I felt. Once the spinal went in I was shivering uncontrollably for the whole procedure. Dr Brown Bear explained it’s just the drugs and not to fight it but me being me, I thought I could beat it with mind over matter. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I also have this irrational fear that you’ll be that one person who the anaesthetic doesn’t work for and you’re going to feel the whole thing.

Bubba just woke up … Good thing I didn’t go to sleep … But I’m on a roll now so will start again.

So it’s go time. I’m nice and numb, yet somehow still feel the sensation of freezing cold antiseptic being brushed all over my stomach (cue more shivering). Tugging pulling and pushing ensues – I know stuff’s going on, it’s all a bit surreal, you almost forget you’re actually having a baby at that moment then …

You hear that cry, your baby’s cry – the first contact you have with the unknown little human you’ve been waiting 9 months to meet, then you clap eyes on them as the squished up little person is thrust up over the curtain – it is still the same amazing initial feeling of seeing your baby for the first time but they are immediately gone from your sight for a few seconds that feel like an hour. The whole ‘meeting experience’ (for me anyway) was so much better with a vaginal delivery where I never lost sight of her and she was immediately in my arms and staring at me. With the c-section there are a few things that make it hard – you’re flat on your back and the curtain feels almost too close to your face so when she was placed in my arms, it was an awkward hold, kind of right under your chin using just your hands instead of more of a cradle hold. Then just like that, they whisk bub right off you again and you feel useless as you lie prone on that bed while 536 people all stand around doing stuff to your baby that you’ve barely even held. You try and look around but you can’t move and for what feels like an eternity, you can’t even see baby. At some point in time dad cut the cord – I didn’t even see it. I had delayed cord clamping in my (very loose) birth plan that went out the window with a c-section – they say you can still ask for this with a ‘gentle c section’ but honestly who’s asking their surgeon to dim the lights, cut you open by candle light, delay the clamping, oh and can you be gentle please? Just another example of how little control you have over the whole thing – I didn’t see a midwife until I was in recovery. Honestly, no-one is advocating for the c sec mum.

After everyone else plays with bub you get her back for a few minutes, in my case, I was handed a bundle of blankets and from my flat out position, I didn’t even know which end was which. Someone snaps the cookie cutter c-section picture – you know the one: mum and dad in their surgical hats, bub on mum’s chest and no matter how close up it is you can still see that stupid curtain and mum’s gown, and the second you share that first picture, the whole world knows you had a c-sec. After the customary pics they took her off again to weigh etc. That was in a whole other room while I was being stitched. I found out later even her dad wasn’t with her as I’d originally thought. It took over an hour and a half to have my insides stuffed back in (I recall hearing one of those dentist suction thingies and a lot of pushing like someone was practically sitting on me), get stitched, cleaned up and wheeled into recovery where I finally got to properly hold and at last – feed my baby, which is all I was craving for 90 minutes. I even had to ask a nurse “can I feed my baby now?” like it was somehow her decision and not mine. After a vaginal birth, my firstborn literally clawed her own way up me & straight on the boob within seconds of being born and it felt like time stopped there and we stared at each other for hours – that was awesome and I feel like with a c section you are robbed of that whole immediate bonding experience. The whole thing really was a very clinical “procedure”, so formulaic and out of my control, I just followed instructions and at some point in proceedings was wheeled to a private room where I could process what had just happened and actually enjoy my new little bundle for the first time.

C-section recovery? Now that’s a whole other story… Let’s just say not fun. In a perfect world (no pregnancy issues), having experienced both regular and express delivery would I freely choose a Caesarian over a vaginal birth? Hell no! Given the same set of circumstances would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

When I was given the choice I really just wanted someone to tell me what I *had* to do? Not that I would wish it on anyone, but I almost feel an emergency C would have been easier to mentally process, as you really have no other option. Have I been guilted over this choice? No of course not, everyone who knows (the world after those first pics), has been immensely supportive (“who cares how they come out, as long as they’re healthy” right?) well sometimes we do care, but that’s ok.

If you happen upon here now, please note all of my ramblings are drafts only until I get my real site up and running with more content including images, prettiness etc. More birth stories coming (no that doesn’t mean I’m having more babies).

Who is this jerk that thinks people will want to read anything by her? Read more about me here.

I’m usually not very good at accepting compliments but this time, I think they might actually be right. Dammit, I know they’re right.

There has been sucky elimination diets including nearly a month avoiding my beloved dairy; full-body back-breaking contortion acts to get into the best position for that elusive perfect latch; and countless late nights of not only getting up to feed 18million times, but pumping at 2am when your eyeballs are touching the floor.

There has been what seem like daily appointments with two lactation consultants, paediatrician, surgeon, GP, chiropractor, osteopath, paediatric dentist, at least one random nonna on a bench at the shops, and many many late night appointments with Dr Google. At times, some of the so-called “experts” have dismissed my concerns out of hand and in turn, I’ve second guessed myself, only to fall back on my motherly instincts and soldier on. I’m pretty sure I could now write my thesis on breastfeeding and babies with tongue tie.

There has been far too much washing and sterilising of pumps, dummies, spoons, medicine droppers and of course bottles (featuring a thousand different shapes and sizes of teats), for someone who considers herself a breastfeeding mum (have you noticed that there’s never a clean bottle when your baby is at its screaming hungriest?).

There has been tears. Lots of tears. Tears of physical pain at bleeding nipples and searing back ache. Tears over spilt milk (literally). Tears of frustration and empathy for my baby’s tears. Tears from us both when she screams at the mere sight of a nipple approaching her face. Tears in grieving the newborn / motherhood journey I was supposed to have but didn’t. Tears streaming down my face while I stood outside alone, while a stranger performed a painful and scary procedure on my tiny screaming 3 month old human.

There has been the awful post-laser massages I had to perform four times a day for 21 days, squeezing my fat fingers in a tiny person’s mouth to poke and prod at two painful wounds (cue more tears).

There has been times where I’ve considered throwing in the towel until I remember I don’t really have an alternative. (Go on, one more person suggest switching to formula, without understanding that my baby hates bottles as much as she hates my boobs…)

So when someone who hears what we’ve been through, and that I’m still persevering with our breastfeeding journey four months in, calls me awesome – I honestly think to myself, yes. Yes I am.

… Then I realise she’s only ever known this struggle of a life, and has gone through it all completely dependent on me. She is the one who has had to endure the hunger, tummy pain, mouth pain, my big fat fingers shoved in her mouth rubbing two painful wounds – and then I think to myself … she’s pretty bloody awesome too.

If you happen upon here now, please note all of my ramblings are drafts only until I get my real site up and running with more content including images, prettiness etc.

Who is this jerk that thinks people will want to read anything by her? Read more about me here.

Is your baby crying more often than not? Not just crying because they’re hungry but really screaming, as if in pain? … All. The. Time? Are they (and you) waking frequently, like every two hours kind of frequently? Are they draining you to the point of physical exhaustion?

Yes, babies cry. Of course bringing a new life into this crazy world is exhausting. But if you’ve met all their physical needs and your newborn or infant is still stripping paint with their blood curdling screams, firstly, know you’re not alone. Secondly, take some comfort, if you can, that it is not normal.

Read that again – despite what all the counter-productive do-gooders will tell you – this is not normal.

People around you, the so called experts in particular, might try and normalise this behaviour, unintentionally giving you the feeling that as a mother you’ve somehow failed. That you aren’t meeting your child’s basic needs, whereas all the smiling mums at playgroup or drinking coffee around you with their seemingly perfect children in fact are.

You know what? It’s not you. That’s right. Some babies are actually broken. Do you know how I know? I had one. A broken baby. I thought my first baby was colicky. I thought for those first 8 weeks that I had to pace around the bedroom to get her to sleep, that she was difficult. She was briefly on Zantac and I took her to a chiropractor for reflux. I now know with hindsight that in actual fact, she was really quite awesome, and that yes, babies do just cry and have these little hurdles to get over in the early weeks of adjusting to this crazy world.

When baby number two came along I knew the difference. This was not normal. My baby was broken.  After being told by many people including my paediatrician that some babies are just cranky, I wanted to punch them. In my sleep deprived state, I would have easily been able to plead insanity and get away with it. This baby wasn’t cranky, something was wrong. In my case, after months of chasing answers with the steely determination that only a mother has, it turned out she had a posterior tongue tie and an upper lip tie – she couldn’t eat, and she was hungry all the time. That would make me pretty pissed too.

Day one of revising her tongue and lip by laser at just over three months, and I had a new, happy little person. The person I knew I was supposed to have, and she was just lovely.

So, don’t let anyone tell you some babies are cranky – there is a lovely person inside your cranky human just waiting to get out. I’m in a mummies group of 150 mums, with probably 400 odd babies and kids between them, it’s no surprise that the two crankiest babies in the bunch both turned out to be tied babies.

I’m not a medical expert and of course, it may not be a tongue or lip tie for you, it might be a food intolerance, or a banging headache from a traumatic assisted birth, an ear infection, or any number of other things that upset little ones. But don’t give up, your person wants you to help them be who they are meant to be.

Don’t forget to call on your ‘village’ to help and support you. Whether that’s family, friends or a Facebook support group, not only can they give you a break if you need it (even just to take a shower – let’s face it, you probably smell by now), or help cook a meal in your darkest moment, but you never know who has already been through this journey and may just point you toward your answer.

It will take time and unfortunately money you probably don’t have. Not to mention many late night sessions with Dr Google long after everyone in the house has gone to bed and your eyelids have turned to sandpaper. The medical profession and probably everyone else will say to avoid Google, but let me tell you, Dr Google was there for me when Dr Real World wasn’t. Dr Google, and believe it or not, even Dr Facebook are two of the reasons my small human is now on her road to recovery.

Good luck with your little bundle of ‘joy’, may he or she be gurgling and giggling at you very soon.

If you happen upon here now, please note all of my ramblings are drafts only until I get my site up and running with more content including images, prettiness etc. Feel free to contact me with suggestions on how to improve the site.

Who is this jerk that thinks people will want to read anything by her? Read more about me here.