Perseverance

by Kelly Palazzi

I gave birth to my daughter Alicia 11 years ago. I was a single mom at the time. People would ask me if I was bottle or breastfeeding. I would cringe and hold my breasts as if they were being pinched and say "no", I'm bottle feeding. The mere thought of breastfeeding made me feel very uncomfortable.

In 1999 I married Alicia's swim coach, and soon thereafter we were pregnant. My husband just assumed I would breastfeed our baby, but I expressed my uneasiness about the whole idea. After discussion I decided halfheartedly to give it a try, and if I found I didn't like it I would stop. On March 10, 2001, our son Ian was born. I insisted that I nurse him within the hour that he was born so we could bond. I felt more willing to do this for my husband, to show him what a good mom I can be, rather than for my son. Well, I will never forget the feeling I had when I looked down at my son at my breast as I nurtured and loved him. Love poured out of every part of my body, and, yes, even my breasts.

Three days later we took him home from the hospital. At 3:00 in the morning he was screaming and crying. It seemed all of a sudden he forgot how to latch on. We were trying and trying, and he was screaming more and more and was becoming lethargic. I had no choice but to give him formula. After that incident he would not latch on. Every feeding time I would bring him to the breast and he would just scream and move his head back and forth like he couldn't find it. So I would have to get out a bottle of formula. This went on for two days. I called the lactation consultant at the hospital and left messages. She never got back to me. I called the same consultant who was also in charge of renting a breast pump and again she never called me back. I felt so abandoned. I cried so much for those two days. I dreaded every feeding time because I knew I would be rejected.

I read and was told that once a baby drinks from the bottle he will never go to the breast. I felt like time was running out. For someone who was extremely hesitant about breastfeeding in the first place, I was more determined than ever to make this work! I got out the phonebook and contacted someone from the LaLeche League. I started to explain my situation -- I think I uttered but maybe three words -- and the rest was just indistinguishable sobbing. She calmed me down and told me that she had many a cry in the beginning of her breastfeeding experience, too. The first thing she told me to do was to get a pump. I was pretty gorged by this time. Then she gave me the name of a lactation consultant who will come to the house and help me. I rented the pump that day. the next day I had the lactation consultant to the house. Well, let me tell you, she meant well, but the whole session was about forcing him on the breast. We tried the nipple shield, she poured formula over my nipples and tried to trick him on that way, she would force his mouth on my breast, we tried different positions, all the while he was screaming and me thinking now, is this worth it. He did latch on the right breast eventually, but refused the left. She told me some babies have preferences to one over the other. I thought "so I only feed from one breast for now on?" Her time was up. We sort of left everything up in the air. She did, however, recommend using the Evenflo Elite bottle because it was more like the breast. She also recommended that I keep pumping. I was physically and emotionally exhausted by the time she left.

He didn't latch on again either. So for every three hours, 15 minutes a breast, day and night, I pumped. I pumped in the car on the turnpike, I pumped in parking lots, I would pump while my husband bottle fed late night and in the wee hours of the morning. I was hooked up to that pump for 12 days every three hours. But everyday in-between I would try to latch him on. I would skip a day trying to latch him on only because I was emotionally burnt. Then one day I took a good look at my breasts and said what does the bottle have that I don't have? The bottle was a little more pointed. My breasts, well, looked like breasts. So the next time I tried to latch him on I squeezed the tip of my breast to make it narrower like the bottle and put it in his mouth. Well, would you believe, it worked!!!!! On both breasts, too. I cried and cried, this time with joy. I could not believe it worked after everything we went through.

With each feeding I was nervous it wouldn't work again, but it did. After 12 days I got this baby to breastfeed again. We beat all the odds. I'm happy to say that I've been successfully, and happily, breastfeeding my son for eight months now. I have not set a time period like most people; a year, 18 months, 2 years. I'm going to do this for as long as we both mutually desire. I feel so privileged to be doing this. I enjoy our special time together. Now when people ask me if I breast or bottle-fed I proudly tell them I breastfeed, and it's the best thing I ever did for my SON, no one else. Would I go through all of this again, to do the right thing for my child? In a heartbeat!!!!!!

It saddens me to hear that many women give up because they don't have enough milk and they put their babies on the bottle. I think that was our problem on day three; my milk wasn't coming in and my son wasn't latching on because he wasn't getting his milk. But by pumping and eventually getting my son to latch on and suckle more and more increased my supply and enabled me to be successful. I was never overwhelmed with milk and there were times I supplemented with formula, but the majority of his nutrients came from me. So for all the women out there struggling to develop a strong, healthy breastfeeding relationship, I say keep trying, persevere, never give up. It will work out. Just give it time. You won't regret it.