This is KJ, and she is five months old today. I’ve got, I’ve got a little boy who’s two and a half. He’s at nursery today, isn’t he?
I was in my mum’s rental car and nearly gave birth in a car in the car park, and then I actually gave birth on a wheelchair in in the in the reception, and they, they were wheeling me into the assessment little Ward bit. I thought, why are you assessing me? I’m clearly giving birth right now. And then they turned me around and said, she she will take her straight to labour ward. And they started wheeling me to labour ward. And she went, but she’s not going to make it. And they told me about round again. So three times I went that way, that way, that way. They said, all the heads out, I know. And then they went, you’re going to have to hold the head for us. I was like, because of the weight angle I was in whilst they helped get the rest, the rest of her out, and my husband went, I’m on the wrong end. It was hilarious. But you know, these things happen to me, and if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Have any pain relief with either of them for the actual birth with my first I then had to get rushed to theatre to have the placenta removed because I’d lost 1.7 litres of blood. He had skin on, skin contact with, with, with Luke whilst I was in theatre for 45 minutes. And then it latched on, I don’t know. I just couldn’t feel from from, like my ribs down so so I could access all of the top and so he breastfed straight away. It was a brilliant latch. They both were, they’re both instant, very, very quickly latched on.
The intention with my first was to mix feed the intention with my second was to breastfeed for six months my first, it just I slowly dwindled from I was so tired I wasn’t coping. And there was one night when I was awake in the middle of the night, got up in the middle of the night for a feed, and I was holding him, and I was crying over his head, and I was so tired that I woke my husband up, and my husband sat behind me, holding me up so I could sleep and breast feed at the same time. And I just felt that was quite emotionally destroying, and I wasn’t coping at all. I had postnatal depression, and I didn’t realise, and there was a lot, a lot going on. Luke’s dad had died. I was organising our wedding. So much was happening and I wasn’t coping, so, so I rang the breastfeeding helpline, and they are brilliant. They’re brilliant if you want to breastfeed, but they’re not so great if you want to stop and want a bit of guidance on it, because it did feel a lot more like they were going, well, just try again. Just try again. I was like, Yeah, but maybe I’m saying to you that I want to stop. I don’t bring it up that often, because they are a good support helpline for people who do struggle with breastfeeding and want to stick with it, but, but but that is their focus, so maybe I should have sort of rung the stop breastfeeding helpline. I was at a high risk of postnatal depression, because I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression for a lot of my life, and so I put lots of stuff in place, actually, to to help me get through with that. I would, I’d, I’d gone to the doctor, and I was registered with Silver Cloud, which is a CBT format. But then, because I was so busy, I was too busy to be depressed, and then all of a sudden, when I had a moment to rest, it all sort of struck me. I’d say around the time that I stopped breastfeeding because I started drinking again. Yeah, I don’t drink at all now, actually, in AA fellowship, I didn’t realise that I’d always had a drink problem. And then when I’d stopped breastfeeding and I could go out and drink, then it became like I would binge drink, and it made everything worse, because I was just really I was I was just really sad and sleep deprived, and then there was still a baby at the end of the day when I stopped breastfeeding. KJ was because my hands had got inflamed with X man, I couldn’t pick her up. I couldn’t physically pick her up. I ended up in hospital, and they gave me antibiotics to calm it down, they gave me oral antibiotics and antibiotic cream. My husband had to take time off work. I was still trying to breastfeed through this. Got to the point where I the pharmacy said, Put hydrocortisone on and put cotton gloves on. And I did that, and when I took it off, it ripped my skin off. Now I’m all recovered from that, PJ’s, bottle fed. And I can hold my kids hands, you know, I seem to have come so far from that moment.
So I felt a lot of breastfeeding shame with my son. So I’d only breastfeed when I was at home. I just wouldn’t, I wouldn’t breastfeed anywhere but at home. So I felt that very restricting. But then with KJ, I went, there is no fucks given. I was like, we were at a soft place Centre, which has a pub attached to it, and I was walking through the whole place with my boob out with the baby. I was just like, oh, Where’s so and so you’re just having a normal conversation. I will not let anyone breastfeed shame me. And I think that’s one of the worst things, which why I like the project so much, is because there’s so much breastfeeding shame. My friend got breastfeed shamed in Asda cafe. She went to sit down, and they said, Oh, you can’t sit here unless you’ve bought something. She said, I’m just going to breastfeed. And said, you can’t breastfeed here. And when I was registering her birth in Bradford, Bradford town hall, I changed her and then she was still really Fauci anyway, I sat on this chair in the middle of the hallway and started breastfeeding her. And someone came over to me and said, Do you want me to find a room feeds and sit on our I went sitting. I went, I’m I’m actually fine here, but, you know, a room would be great. I was not bothered about where I was sat and who and who would be walking past me. No one was going to make me feel like I was doing anything wrong for what I was doing. The confidence and emotion that’s changed from from my first child to my second, I’ve got amazing support with mum groups, and I see people breastfeeding all the time, and if they can do it, why couldn’t I? You’re always doing something wrong. You’re shamed if you breastfeed for too long. You’re shamed if you don’t breastfeed at all. You shamed if you got your boob out in public, you’re shamed if you’ve got a bottle out. There isn’t a way to win. And I don’t think anybody should be shamed for their choices.
Take one day at a time, definitely. Do you know the one thing that really got me through the first the first day, the first two weeks, the first five months, because she’s only five months a day, is by going, I’m not going to I didn’t even take it a day at a time. I took it a moment at a time. So every breastfeed was actually special, but definitely breast. My breastfeeding journey was about taking time and having that connection with my baby and and I enjoyed it and I and I loved it while. So while I could do it, unfortunately I had stopped, but that, you know, that was by choice. So definitely, take one moment, take one moment at a time, and meditate. Oh, God, meditate. You.
