Part Three: RECOVERY, PPD, AND HOW BREASTFEEDING GAVE ME BACK MY BABYMy next memory is that of pain. Extreme, mind numbing, soul consuming pain. I opened my eyes to see someone pounding on my stomach with great vigor. I grabbed and fumbled at her hands, pushing and pulling trying to get her to release me and stop the torture. She slapped my hands away and explained that she had to do this, that it was protocol. She finished the torture routine and left me in the bed to sob. The pain was like nothing I have ever experienced. I asked for pain releif, for anything. She finally agreed and brought me something in a syringe. I asked what she was and she told me Acamol, which is basically the Israeli equivalent of Tylenol. I asked if there was anything stronger that she could give me and she said no. I asked to see my baby and she told me that I could not see him for 8 hours. That I would have to be in the recovery room for 6 hours after the surgery and then the baby would have to be in the nursery for 8. "Monitoring" they called it. After that he could be brought to my room. I cried. I knew how important it was to establish a bond between the mother and the baby immediately after birth. How important it was for the baby to be allowed to nurse as soon as possible to establish a good latch that would be invaluable in the breastfeeding relationship. I explained this. She cited protocol. I felt so helpless.
I closed my eyes and tried to block out the pain. I opened them again to see my husband bouncing through the door with the biggest smile on his face. He was such a proud Papa. He had been to see the baby and brought me a video. In it the baby was crying, they had gone against our wishes and given him a shot of Vitamin K and done a Glucose stick citing the fact that it was impossible that he be 4.6 kilos and not have Gestational Diabetes. They were wrong, his sugar was perfect, they stuck him for nothing. I watched those few moments that should have been so precious in agony, my heart broke. My baby had been ripped from me and now was lying clothed in only a diaper in a plastic bin on the other side of the hospital. He was cold, he was hungry, they were poking him, he was alone. My heart broke.
My husband finally managed to get the nurse to give me a shot of morphine for the pain and it was magical. I slipped out of reality and into a numb haze. The pain of the surgery and the emotional turmoil again slipped away. I woke up in my hospital room. I begged for my baby. They would not bring him. More somach pounding, no more morphine.
It was almost 9 hours from his birth before he was brought to me. I immediately picked him up and tried to feed him. They had bathed him while he was away, washing off all of the amniotic fluid that he would use to help him identify my smell, help him find the breast. He struggled to find the nipple, to establish a latch. It goes without explanation that his latch was terrible. We tried over and over. He was frantic, I was crying.
Nursing was miserable. I could not find a position that was anything short of agony. I asked for pain relievers but was only given more Acamol. I was refused anything stronger. It did not help and finally I gave up and stopped taking anything at all. I was less than a day out of surgery. The baby stayed at the breast nearly all night. I was not allowed to keep him in the bed with me (more protocol) and had to rely on my mother to pick him up from the bassinet and bring him to me when he cried. I would have to get out of bed and into a chair which not only was horribly painful, but took several long minutes. By the time she woke up and got him to me, he would be hysterical. More bad latch, more pain. I was at the end of my rope. How could everything have gone so wrong?? My body had betrayed me. I was terrible at being pregnant, I had clearly failed at giving birth, my baby had been ripped from me and now I couldn't feed him without pain. To make matters worse I was struggling to bond with him. I did not feel like this was my baby. I felt no connection to him, it was more like they had taken my baby from me and plopped some stranger into my arms. I felt like I had failed as a mother.
We tried again and again the next day. From around noon onward he wanted to do nothing but nurse. He was at the breast nearly then entire day with only a half hour break every 2 hours or so. I was out of my mid with sleep deprivation and pain. By midnight he wanted nothing but to nurse. He nursed solid from midnight until the next morning at 6 am when the nurse came in for rounds. I had given up on the chair at about 1 AM and brought him to the bed with me so that I could at least close my eyes as he ate. I spent the night swapping him from one breast to the other, trying to keep his screams to a minimum so as not to wake the woman who shared the room with me and who had already screamed at me for not sending my baby to the nursery. The nurse threw an absolute screaming fit when she saw him in the bed with me, snatching him away and taking him to the nursery. I was told I could not have him again until 9:30. We spent much of the second day doing the same thing, more chair, more pain, more bad latch. There was a lactation consultant available that afternoon and I was so excited for someone to explain to me what I was doing wrong. Hubby went home to check on the cats (who had been at this point several days without food) and would return later that evening. Afternoon rolled around and it turns out the lactation consultant spoke no English. She roughly mashed my breast into the baby's face until he latched on told me "like that" and left the room.
At this point the entire surface of my nipples had blood blistered over and every suck was like fire ripping through me. That night when they weighed him they said that he had lost 10% of his body weight. They said a baby his size could never survive on breastmilk alone and that they would have to give him formula. I knew that it was perfectly normal for a baby to lose weight after birth and that he was only getting colostrum at this point as my milk was just barely starting to come in. I had seen faint traces of it at the edge of his mouth that evening. I knew that it was only a matter of time before my breasts would be full of milk and his weight would bounce back. The next morning he had not gained any weight and they informed me that they would be giving me formula to feed him. If I did not feed him the formula, they would administer it. I flat out refused. When the baby was brought to my room there was a bottle of formula on his bassinet. They again told me that I had to give him the formula or they would. My mother, having breastfed three babies herself, wavered and suggested that maybe one bottle of formula wouldn't hurt. Furious at her seeming betrayal, I read her the ingredients on the side, not one of them being a natural product, the closes thing to pronounceable was the dehydrated homogenized milk powder (yum!!). Most everything else was some sort of unpronouncable chemical that you would expect to find on the side of a can of paint, not in something you would eat. She no longer though it a harmless idea.
They had removed the bandages that morning and I saw the incision for the first time. They had cut me from the inside of one hipbone to the other. I looked like the Bride of Frankenstein. I tried to swallow the feelings of disgust brought on by my own vanity as I starred in horror at the strech marks, the sagging deflated tummy, the red, angry slash across my stomach held together by 13 metal staples. Lucky 13... I could hear the echos of everyone saying "oh its so worth it!! Blah de friggin blah" It didn't feel worth it. I had endured months of pain and worry topped off by nearly a week of the worst moments of my life and now here I was with a tiny baby who seemingly hated me and that I could not seem to figure out how to feed. I felt broken, like my body had betrayed me. Women's bodies are made with one thing in mind, to carry, birth and nourish babies. I had failed at all three.
I spoke with my husband and we decided it was best to sign out of the hospital AMA. Despite more threats from the doctors about the baby dying of dehydration and me hemhoraging and bleeding to death, I knew I was not going to let them put chemicals into my baby. I knew that my milk would come in and that he would eventually gain back the weight that he had lost. I knew this was the right thing. We brought the baby home.
The next week was a blur. My mom extended her trip a third time and was an amazing help. I basically lay in bed and fed the baby whenever he cried. Alot of times I cried with him. We had still not figured out how to get him to latch properly and my nipples were mangled, the blood blisters had scabbed over and every nursing session was ripping them open again. I was in agony. By the end of the week I finally broke down and used my pump to express some milk and fed it to him. I was terrified that this would only make things worse but it was a last resort. I could not go on. I did this for another day and by the end of the next day my nipples had healed enough to nurse again. Miraculously his latch had improved and nursing was for the first time virtually painless.
I would like to say that everything went smoothly from here on out but that would be a lie. I was putting on a happy face for everyone around me but inside I still felt destroyed. My body had betrayed me. I still felt no bond with my baby. I went through the motions of motherhood, still reeling emotionally from the traumatic events of the week before. My mother eventually went home and I was alone to deal with everything. It was still to painful from the surgery to nurse the baby in any other position than sitting up amongst as many pillows as I could manage. This meant every time he needed to nurse I would have to sit up and arrange everything before feeding him. It was not the easy, effortless event that it should have been. We were both exhausted.
I felt an incredible need to have the baby in my sight at all times. Having had him yanked from my body and held hostage for those first few hours of his life I was terrified of not having him next to me. Unfortunately this meant I got no break. My husband after several days of watching me move like a zombie through out the house, decided to take the baby to his parents for several hours to give me a "break" from the baby. He did not realize that his good intentions were my worst nightmare. This was not the break I needed. I needed someone to come and do the dishes and the laundry and the shopping so I did not have to. I did not need them to take my baby so that I could do the dishes and the laundry. I was distraught. I begged him not to take the baby but he did not listen. I cried so hard in the minutes after he left that I made myself sick. I lay in my bed until I cried myself to sleep, horrible visions of everything that could go wrong if I was not there whirled in the edges of my subconscious. I had failed my baby again. I had let him be taken from me.
I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when things started to clear for me, only that at some point it did. It took about a month before the pain from the C-section wore down enough so that I could nurse comfortably on my side. Once this happened, I was able to lie down with my baby and feed him. I started being able to sleep at night, my body wrapped protectively around his tiny form. His face pressed against me, helping himself as needed. He no longer cried at night, frantic for food that was taking to long. He barely awoke from sleep to root his face around until he found the breast. My movements became instinctive as well, my body protected him, unmoving throughout the night. I would crack an eye open to check on him, a blanket tuck here, a goodnight kiss there. I finally slept. We spent hours in bed, nursing together, sleeping together. The coldness I felt towards him began to melt. I started to watch him as he nursed. The little movements of his mouth as he pulled the milk, the tiny smiles of satisfaction, the way his eyes studied my face. He was so emotive, I was mesmerized.
I began to take pleasure in his satisfaction. His hungry little grunts and happy squeaks as he ate made me smile. He would pop off in the middle of a feed to grin at me, milk dripping down the sides of his face and off his chin. Sometimes he would suck with such force and then pop off that my milk would spray him in the face. He would get a huge open mouthed grin and shake his head from side to side trying to catch all the milk. I found myself laughing constantly at all the things he would do.
He gained weight beautifully, at the top of the charts for his age. Little fat rolls began forming on his arms and legs and I knew my milk was nourishing him well. He grew out of his 0-3 months clothes at 2 weeks of age, filling out the 3-6 month clothes easily. He hit other milestones quickly, holding his head up on his own from birth, pushing up on his arms within the first few days, rolling over at two weeks. I was astonished at how strong he was. I marveled at his little movements, the expressions when he slept. He was perfection.
He viewed my breasts with the purest form of adoration I have ever seen. He would awaken from a nap and cry out for food. At the first mention of boobie he would immediately stop crying and break into a huge grin, I felt satisfaction in the ability to comfort his needs.
He wanted nothing more than to nurse for hours and I was satisfied to lie in bed beside him while he did so. He would wrap his chubby arms around my breast,hugging me with both arms as he ate. I laughed at the frantic gulps and lips smacks when he first began to nurse and smile as they faded, his tiny jaw maxing gentle pulls as he drifted off to sleep. He would sleep with me as a pillow, cheek pressed against me, his lips just barely touching my skin. If I dared move, he would open one eye and look at me as if to say, "where do you think YOUR going??" and pounce on my nipple until he was satisfied that I was not leaving him.
I have no doubt in my mind that breastfeeding saved us. I no longer felt like I was going through the motions, like this was a tiny stranger in my arms. The hours that we spent together, the feelings of pride when I saw him thrive from milk that my body produced, the love that he showered on me, those tiny smiles of satisfaction as he drifted off to sleep, his head on my breast. I began to feel less broken. My body may not have been good at being pregnant, or giving birth, but by G-d, I was good at feeding this baby! My baby...
I still cry when I think about his birth. I do not feel as though I gave birth, and it feels like a loss. I am not sure when I will let go of that, when I will stop mourning, but I hope that one day I will. I cannot imagine where we would be now had I never breastfed, or given up in those first excruciating days. We all know the health benefits to breastfeeding, the antibodies, the perfect match of milk to babies needs, the lower risk of obesity later in life, the decreased cancer risk, the list goes on. What you rarely here about are the emotional benefits. I cannot possibly describe the emotional ties that it creates, the act of feeding a human being from your own body. I feel my heart swell at the formation of every tiny fat roll. I am succeeding, my child is thriving.
As a lie in bed I notice I still sleep in the same position that I did in the final days of my pregnancy. My body curls around his tiny form in the same way I curled around him when he was in my belly. Protecting him from the world around us, from anything that might hurt him, that might disturb him from his peaceful dreams. He sleeps cuddled next to me, his tiny feet resting on the tops of my thighs, his hands stroking my skin, his mouth pressed against my breast. Tiny kisses throughout the night. We sleep together, mother and child, connected again. Nourishing his body, nourishing my soul.
