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While I was pregnant I had always had this delusion that breastfeeding was going to be easy. It has to be easy…right!? Well no….The moment I gave birth to my daughter we did skin to skin and attempted breastfeeding. I remember the midwife grabbing the back of my daughters head and almost slamming her poor little delicate face onto my breast. My daughter wouldn’t latch, the midwife tried another three times and finally little Miss began to drink.

That was my introduction to Breastfeeding. That’s it. I tried to copy what the midwife did but my baby girl just couldn’t do it. The midwives would hear my daughter screaming from being hungry and watching me trying to feed her. No words of assistance, just a… ‘Here like this.’ Followed by the grab of the back of her head and slamming into my breast. I felt like a failure at that point. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t understand why this wasn’t happening for me.

By the fourth day in hospital my poor breasts were destroyed. Blood blisters and severly cracked and bleeding. I was in tears from hearing my daughter cry for food because I knew it was going to mean horrible pain for me.

After two days at home, I had the midwife visit me at home. We decided to try exclusively expressing to give my body time to heal. It was only now that I realise it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t feed my daughter. The midwife said that little one just couldn’t figure out how to latch. This meant a trip to the Lactation Consultant.

After 3 weeks of solely expressing and one very unproductive visit to the Lactionation Consultant I decided Breastfeeding just wasn’t going to happen. I was stressed, felt like a milking cow and began to feel depressed. After much discussion with my husband we both decided that we would try formula. I tore with this idea in my mind for another week before I really accepted the change.

I look back and I am very happy with decision we made. I would rather be happy and stress free bringing up my daughter and she is thriving, in the 97th percentile.

I would love to try breastfeeding with my next child but I wont be stressing about it if it doesn’t work out.

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Posted by case_girl, 9th May 2013