Life on Planet Mother - a chapter from Wits' End Before Breakfast

Four months after Ellie's birth, it had just gone three

o'clock one morning when it occurred to me that I

was hooked on the latest in mechanical breast expres-

sion equipment. I mean literally — I was plugged into

this machine like a prize cow on a rotalactor ...

But nothing much was coming out. Hardly a drop,

in fact. 'What's wrong with this thing?' I fumed. I

reread the instruction booklet and leaned forward a bit

to see if gravity would do the trick — but nothing.

Total yield from both sides? Less than ten millilitres.

Pain level on a scale of one to ten? A conservative

twenty-five.


The machine sucked — in every sense of the word.

It also made alarming noises, emitting a hybrid 'moo-

honk' with every agonising pulse. At the best of times,

it's disconcerting to watch your nipple being vacuumed

into an unforgiving plastic funnel — much worse when

there's almost nothing to show for it.


I consulted the 228-page manual on the simplicity

of breastfeeding. You're meant to look at the baby to

stimulate the let-down reflex, so I tried that. Ellie was

red-faced and screaming with hunger in the rocker

and I thought, 'Yes, I do feel a trifle let down ...'

Not by her, of course. By myself. She hadn't put on

any weight in three weeks. The Nipple Nazis from the

baby clinic told me to hang in there and forbade me

to complement her feeds with formula because it

would 'ruin the milk supply'. Could this be a case of

shutting the proverbial gate, I wondered, after the

horse had well and truly bolted?


As a new mum (albeit second time around) I took

the nurses' advice. I'd breastfed Matilda for twelve

months quite happily — surely I could manage a

repeat performance? Breast is — (as we all know ...

say the mantra with me) — BEST. I'd experienced it

like that, too: flourishing infant guzzling softly, milk

over-flowing from the corners of her satisfied little

mouth, little fingers grasping mine, tiny eyelids blink-

ing in contentment ...


But the reality is that the experience can also be

difficult bordering on impossible sometimes, despite

the best of intentions — and it messes with your com-

mon sense. (Not that there are any posters to this

effect displayed in maternity wards or early-childhood

clinics.)


Apparently the more stimulation you get, the more

milk you make. This didn't say much for the program

on offer in the dark, mastitis-afflicted months of

Elbe's troubled infancy, when our days went some-

thing like this: Five o'clock in the morning Ellie

wakes, crying for food. I give her all I have (which is

never enough). She continues crying — screaming,

actually — for the next fourteen hours. Nothing

placates her. I try to express some milk. Matilda sits

beside me, engrossed in the process but not so inter-

ested that she forgets her request for help with the

Cookie Monster jigsaw puzzle. At this point it's

beyond me. And by that I mean everything is beyond

me, not just the puzzle ...


On one such morning I switched the pump off to

answer the phone. It was the clinic sister attempting

to wax lyrical (and repetitive) on the subject of 'breast

is best' over the competing screams of a starving baby.

She told me in no uncertain terms not to resort to

'artificial feeding'. I glanced around the room at the

array of electrical cords, plastic tubes and bottles in

various degrees of sterilisation, and wondered how

much more artificial this process could get. She then

offered the services of a mobile lactation consultant. I

accepted graciously, hung up, and hooked myself up

to the pump again. Matilda glanced from the contrap-

tion to my breast and said, 'Right Mummy, where

were we up to?' It was like having a two-year-old life

coach.


Delivering another half a drop of milk into the

bottle, I pressed the pause button when the phone

rang again. It was Mum, wanting to know whether

that poor child was still crying and asking why on

earth I didn't just give her some formula. Rachel and

I were partly raised on the stuff and, according to

Mum, we 'turned out okay'. I started to think that

maybe she was right ...


But before I could organise things, the lactation

consultant arrived and embarked on half an hour of

note taking and manhandling, after which Ellie was

still ravenous and I was drinking a witch's brew of

molasses and fenugreek. The mention of formula was

about as taboo as the idea of settling the baby to sleep

on her stomach. I was firmly convinced, again, that

breastfeeding was the right thing to do.


No sooner was the mammary evangelist down the

driveway than Mum arrived bearing a large tin of

S26 and a microwavable steam steriliser. Ellie was

bawling. I was bawling. Matilda was bawling. Five

minutes in our company and Mum was also bawling.

There was nothing for it but to phone the local

family-care hospital and turn myself in.


Pretty soon I was beamed into the Mother Ship. It

was refreshing to find that all the other inmates

required about as much help as I did — for sleep dep-

rivation, post-natal depression, feeding problems or a

demoralising combination of them all.


The rooms were sunny and the babies were gor-

geous. No one had enjoyed a wink of decent sleep in

several months and yet we sat together drinking hot

toddies and talking long after the babies were settled,

into the early hours of the morning.


As individuals, the only thing we had in com-

mon was a mutual feeling of desperation. One of

the women was a softly-spoken grandmother with

custody of her two young granddaughters. She did

shift work to support the family and was exhausted.


Another was a drug addict whose baby had foetal

alcohol syndrome. There was also a young woman

whose soldier-husband had been on operations for

months while she battled something equally tough

and arguably more isolating.


And then there was me. In all probability I will

never see those women again, but I'll never forget

their friendship during a handful of days when our

difficult paths crossed at rock bottom.


The paediatrician who saw Ellie during our stay

had said, 'The nurses push breastfeeding but you have

a choice. Do you want a healthy child or don't you?

If this continues much longer it will damage her

organs.' Ellie emerged from the experience 250 grams

heavier and I was a full bottle on formula feeding.

Ill-advice from the experts notwithstanding, I

thought if that was the calibre of mistake I was

capable of making while consciously trying to do the

best thing by my child, I was scared to think of the

accidental havoc I could wreak when I wasn't paying

attention. I can no longer hear a newborn crying

without my heart sinking.


I continued to breastfeed Ellie after that, but only

as a comfort thing — after I'd properly nourished

her first. She thrived from that point onwards and

bloomed into the kind of chuckling, smiley-faced

angel who stops the blue-rinse traffic in bank queues

and supermarket checkouts. Looking at her, no one

could guess that her first few months were worse than

miserable for all concerned. As far as she knew, she'd

simply arrived in the world and that was all there was

to it.


It took a little longer to turn myself around.

Wits' End Before Breakfast! Confessions of a Working Mum was published in 2005.  An e-Book version is available on our website.