My Story
I always knew that I would breastfeed. My whole life, I just assumed it would come easily. In fact, I remember telling my midwife that breastfeeding would not be a problem for us because I was breastfed, and surely that’s how it works.
Unfortunately for me though, breastfeeding wasn’t easy. My son had a significant anterior tongue tie at birth which made breastfeeding excruciating. The nurses didn’t realise until he was 24 hours old, and by that time I was bleeding and raw. Each feed was agony. I asked for pain relief and wasn’t given any.
To make matters worse, I struggled to pump milk, and felt like formula was pushed on to us, as my son was gaining very slowly. Over the next couple of hazy weeks I continued to struggle and tried multiple midwifes and lactation consultants. No one could help.
I ended up triple feeding using a hospital grade breast pump around the clock. My supply improved, but I ended up with a breast abcess and mastitis. But still I persisted and persisted. I knew that breastfeeding would be amazing when it worked.
I was told that I should quit, that I didn’t have enough milk, but I kept going.
We used a SNS (supply line) and gave my son a small amount of formula to supplement his weight gain. And it worked, breastfeeding was finally working the way it should.
I weaned him off formula and we were finally exclusively breastfeeding and it felt magical. My abscess was treated and my son grew and grew. He was thriving.
3 years later, I am still breastfeeding and I still think that is a magical experience between mother and child.
I started this site to share my store and to give some advice to other mothers who may be struggling to breastfeed for whatever reason.
