My Baby is a Formula Baby

I have been wanting to write this blog post for a very long time, but have struggled to know how to frame it. But this week (August 1-7) is World Breastfeeding Week, and so I am going to let this event provide my impetus for finally getting down to it.

Two weeks ago I breastfed Miles for the last time.

When I made the decision to stop, my first feeling was enormous relief. And then I got into the shower and I broke down and sobbed. That night I curled up in Brian's arms and I cried and cried and cried. I wouldn't say I had ever felt passionate about breastfeeding, but I'd always just assumed I'd do it and didn't consider the possibility that it might not work out. When my son was born six weeks early and breastfeeding proved difficult and emotional, and when after coming home I was unable to transition from supplementing to full breastfeeding, I still figured I would at least make it to 6 months. Then I revised down to the end of our summer in California. Then I revised down to 3 months. The day I stopped, Miles was 4 days shy of 3 months. I had long known this day might come, and intellectually I had come to terms with formula. But when I finally made the decision, it felt like such a grand failure.

The blog post I originally wanted to write was my story. I wanted to write about not breastfeeding my son for the first week of his life, about pumping around the clock and feeling frustrated and discouraged every time I poured my meager production into plastic hospital bottles and recorded the numbers on the record sheet I was given (10 mL, 17 mL, 14 mL - do you know how small a mL is?) and added up the totals and compared them to the totals I was supposed to be reaching by Day 4, Day 7, Day 10. I wanted to write about doing everything I was told, about talking to nurses and occupational therapists and lactation consultants, pumping by my baby's bedside when I could, looking at pictures of him when I couldn't, taking fenugreek, drinking tons of water, "power pumping." And about how stressful it was to have a baby in the NICU, and then a baby at home who was attached to wires that kept setting off false alarms, and trying to do all this while packing up the apartment for a move, and not even being able to fall back on my favorite form of stress relief because my body hadn't recovered enough for me to get out and go for a run. I wanted to write about the anxiety of never knowing how much milk my baby was getting from me since my (meager) supply fluctuated from feeding to feeding, an anxiety so acute that it sometimes kept me awake at night. About how resources tell breastfeeding parents how to know their child is getting enough, and tell formula feeding parents about how much they can expect their child to eat, but tell supplementing parents to "consult your pediatrician," and how profoundly unhelpful that was.

Miles right after birth: breastfeeding was rather low on the list of immediate concerns.

But what I want to write today is not my story. Instead, I want to express my belief that there's something problematic in the fact that I feel the need to tell my story. That is, it's problematic that I don't simply want to tell my story for the sake of telling it (the way I told about giving birth, for instance), but because I feel compelled to convince the world that I really truly did my best, that I feed my baby formula because I gave breastfeeding my all and it just didn't work out.

I kind of think bottle pictures are adorable.

I am in favor of breastfeeding, and am not opposed to breastfeeding advocacy. But I believe there is much to be improved in how advocacy is carried out, and especially in the respect and support given to mothers who bottle feed.

Brian and I are part of a demographic for which there is enormous pressure to breastfeed, and it's very hard not to feel that you have failed if you do not. The truth is that I genuinely believe my circumstances were unusual and stacked up against me from the beginning, and simultaneously feel that I didn't do enough, that I could have made it work if I just tried harder. In fact, most breastfeeding literature tells me that legitimate supply issues are truly rare, which implies that in the absence of a medical diagnosis, my lack of supply must be due to something I did or failed to do. And because trying to breastfeed wasn't a nightmare for me, but merely really, really, really difficult, I can convince myself that maybe it was my own lack of effort or motivation or desire. After all, my baby latched on just fine. He wasn't allergic to my milk. I didn't have thyroid issues or prior medical history. My nipples were sore at first and my breasts were quite tender, but I never experienced cracking and bleeding, or shooting nerve pain. I didn't ever try confining myself to bed and breastfeeding every hour around the clock. Sometimes I even skipped breastfeeding for a night out with my husband or a little extra sleep or a morning run. I can convince myself that I failed because of me, or that the decision to formula feed was ultimately a selfish one. I don't really believe this, but I could convince myself. Sometimes I feel vaguely guilty that I quit before driving myself to hyper-exhaustion or emotional breakdown, instead of after.

Sometimes when we give Miles a bottle in public, I feel self-conscious. I wish I could just display my story in a sign around my neck or a thought bubble above my head or something. Even a short story, like "Premature baby + low milk supply. Tried to breastfeed and had to give up. We still love our baby very much and are doing the best we can."

Feeding formula is not the equivalent of raising your child on cheeseburgers and milkshakes (but I totally ate a cheeseburger and a milkshake that day).

Yesterday I registered a complaint via the Medela website about some nipples I'd bought. The website is all about breastfeeding, and breastmilk storage, and breastfeeding support, and I kept going past my allotted 300 characters because I felt like I needed to explain why I was using a bottle in the first place. It was a ridiculous feeling, and I knew it as I typed, because after all they sell the nipples. Do I have to explain to them why I use a product they sell? But exploring the website trying to find the contact page left me feeling like somehow they would sense that I was using their nipples to feed my baby formula instead of stored breastmilk, and that if I didn't properly justify myself they wouldn't take my complaint seriously.

Feeding is such a fraught topic. In the early weeks and months of life, it is the most important thing parents do for their children. Miles is becoming more social and active by the day, but his primary duty as a baby is still to eat so he can grow and develop. In light of my own experience, and in recognition of World Breastfeeding Week, I want to express my belief that as long as parents are genuinely trying to do what's best for their children, we should all be allowed to share (or not share!) our feeding stories at face value, that formula feeding stories need not be framed as failures or justifications or battles against incredible odds.

Within my own small circle, I have heard stories from a mother who couldn't breastfeed because her child wouldn't latch, a mother who gave birth to her second child a month after she finished breastfeeding her first and just couldn't bring herself to start all over again, a mother who was unable to breastfeed because of her own supply issues, a mother whose babies breastfed so well that she (to her frustration) never had the freedom to let someone else feed them a bottle so that she could get a much-needed break, a mother who produced so much milk she didn't know what to do with it all. We all have our own stories.

The other day I had a conversation with a good friend who is now mother of a 2 year old. It was the first time I'd talked to her since I had my baby. She asked if I was breastfeeding, and I immediately launched into my story. After I finished, she said, "My daughter and I did both." She explained that her baby had health complications that meant she wasn't able to breastfeed in the first few hours after birth, but that was all. She didn't explain more, or justify herself, or express any guilt, or express her reasons for not feeling guilt. And it was so refreshing how casually she said how she had fed her baby and left it at that.

The truth is that I am not worried about Miles. Our story is much bigger than how we feed our child. In our story, Miles is going out on adventures with his parents from a very young age, and making cute preverbal noises, and smiling and crying, and delighting us when he sleeps 8 hours at night, and loving his tummy time, and spitting up all over the place, and growing out of our favorite outfits. Brian and I are good parents doing the best we can, and we love him very much. He's doing great now, and he'll be just fine.

Further Reading:

The Fearless Formula Feeder - a blog providing support, community, and advocacy for formula feeding mothers (see also Bottled Up, the blog author's very well researched and well written book)

"The Case Against Breastfeeding" by Hannah Rosin - the controversial Atlantic piece

Mothering message board thread that illustrates some of the societal pressures placed on the mere mention of formula (read down to the thread initiator's response to her detractors).