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.
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