Nursing Sucks – by Frida, Your Fellow Mother
Nursing…Isn’t it the most beautiful, healthy, and natural way to connect with your baby? If you have answered yes…then go away!!! It’s not that you’re not welcomed here it’s just that you probably have to go nurse or something! I am not one to share feelings, blog thoughts, or express frustration on this thing they call the internet. However, today I got the urge…like literally if I didn’t share this with all the horrible mothers out there in the universe I would explode.
Because…we are horrible right? I mean that is what I am made to understand… that if I do not nurse and provide the healthiest choice for my little one, then I suck at being a mama! I don’t know if it is other people that make me feel that way or if it’s just my internal gut that just rips at me and says “You can’t give up because who gives up on their child?”
If this all seems a little too dramatic then I don’t think you have experienced this particular inner turmoil. With my first child, I held my son like a football, a baseball, a hand bag, and a Frisbee until the genius doctor decided to tell me that he was tongue-tied. Now anyone who has tried nursing a tongue-tied baby knows that it’s like driving a car…when you’re out of gas. It just doesn’t go! I pumped (yes, from a hospital pump!), I undressed me and baby every time he had a feeding because skin on skin is best, and I didn’t give up. I literally never gave up.
This is not some inspiring story that I am sharing that ends with “and now I nurse my child and he is three years old and I love it!” This is purely a way for me to vent. I did not give up on nursing…but my child did. He literally refused to eat from me. Breast is best…when they want breast! There was nothing I could do. I cried, took some more fenugreek pills, drank some more root beer, and surprisingly he still did not want breast! It gets even sadder. I started doing this thing in my head where I would think of all the people I know that were nursed as babies and kind of make them out to be jerks and asses. I know it’s pathetic and immature but you should know…I was nursed as a baby.
With my second child I made the doctors check for tongue tie about six times, and she was not tongue tied! Yay! Again, this is not some inspiring story that ends with “I didn’t get to nurse my first but I got to nurse my second and now I am still nursing her and she is three!” After I played some football, baseball, and frisbee, and after doing everything else imaginable, she too gave up on me. I find out a few months later that my daughter is lip tied (yes, that’s a thing). I don’t know if that’s the reason we had problems nursing but I’ll take it!
I write all this for all the mothers out there who struggle with nursing and who just want to scream and who make themselves feel so guilty for wanting to just give that baby a bottle! I write this to let you know that you are awesome no matter what and that all we can do is try our best and then let go and breathe…because people who have an easy time nursing suck!
Frida – Your Fellow Mother
