by Amy
I feel like probably, for me personally, I had a miscarriage initially. And then I had 18 months of infertility until I was diagnosed with the prolactin problem. And then I was medicated to conceive Leni.
So at the time when I felt pregnant, it felt too good to be true.
And I sort of went into denial a little bit, and I didn’t announce it to anyone. And I just carried on thinking, I don’t want to say it out loud, because then I’ll get attached. And it’d be worse for me. I don’t know, that doesn’t really make sense when I say out loud, but that’s how I was sort of processing things. Like, I feel like my body is already failed me once with a miscarriage, and then it failed me again, by not being able to fall pregnant, “naturally”. And then now this has happened. This is, this is something that happened to me because my body doesn’t do this sort of thing.
So then when I have this birth which was absolutely euphoric. I mean, I had the best experience of birth ever. I mean, I felt like a superwoman I birthed this baby. And then after that,
the breastfeeding sort of got me and I was like, I knew my body wasn’t what I wanted to be.
I started getting all them like niggly doubts back in. Okay, but then when I established it, and I found the right people to give me the right support. I was like, No, D’you know what?, I’m so proud of this. You know like, I can do this.
I trust me boobs, trust me body, trust me, baby, my body’s birthed this baby.
And I can feed her, this is it, I can do this completely do it. And now I’ve done it! And I’m so happy!
I thought, I initially thought that I’d have this baby and I will be so keen to get back to work. So I was I was a forensic nurse down south and I was working in a police station. So I absolutely loved it. There was always a bit of drama. And you know, it was quite exciting and stuff.
But once I had the baby, it all changed. And I just thought I didn’t really want that anymore. I just want to be mum.
And never imagined that I’d feel like that.
But I’ve just loved every minute of being with her. Maybe about three months ago, I was like racing, I’m not going back to work. I want to do something with my time. So I went and volunteered in a local breastfeeding group. So I’m a peer supporter there at the breastfeeding group.
Oldest of three, and we were all breastfed, but not for a massive amount of time. I think I was probably the longest at about five or six months. And then my brother and sister were even less than that.
So, like my auntie breastfed like, all the females in the family did breastfeed. And I was just like, yeah, that’s something I want to do. And then my friend breastfed for a year and I was like, This is amazing.
And like, she was telling me all the positive stuff about it. And I was like, ah, yeah, that’s what I want to do. And then when it came to my turn, it was.
Yeah, wasn’t that easy. But I found an amazing woman called Rachel FizD And she literally saved my breastfeeding journey. And, yeah, I’ve just, I love feeding her. I absolutely love feeding her. And the connection that we’ve got and just how easy it is now I’ve established it and stuff. And I basically I had Leni down south, it was just me and my husband, we had no family support, or anything like that because we were all on our own.
The first day I stayed… well, the first night, I stayed overnight, and they said they’d provide me with some support. And they just like put me in this little sideward and was like, right, there you go.
And I was like, okay, like, I don’t really know what I’m doing here.
And then I was waiting for her to wake up and I was like, well, you feed on demand. I’ve heard all this, like you feed on demand and stuff. And it was hours later and I was just like, This baby’s not waking up, she was just zonked after the birth. And I was like, okay, and then I heard the midwives bring another lady and they were like, make sure you wake her up after two to three hours and give her a little feed. And I was like, it’s been like six hours and I’ve not woke my baby up. Oh my god. And I went and I was like,
excuse me like no one’s told me this like can someone come and help me?
And they were just like just like you should have woke your baby up. And I was like, but no one told me and I didn’t know that.
So then she was just like really sleepy and she wouldn’t go on and I had harvested some colostrum and stuff. So I sent my husband home to get that. We were giving her that, trying to get her on.
And they were just coming up and like, pushing her face onto me boob
and I was going Okay. Yeah, like just fine.
When she got weighed she’d lost about 11.5% of their birth weight. And they were like threatening like hospital and put me on a feeding plan.
It was just really, really intense.
I ended up pumping, breastfeeding and giving her a top of a formula as well at the beginning.
And I think I’ve had more tears than actual milk in the first few days because it was just super stressful.
So I remember phoning and one of the, like the support workers who came up to see me and she was like, she was lovely. But they all kept telling me I had low supply and to do power pumping and pump, pump pump, like you need to get your supply up. And I was like, okay, just doing that.
And I was just like, losing my mind just trying to feed this baby who’s just crying and crying.
And I’m crying and, and she just mentioned this Rachel FitzD. And I thought, I’m going to try and see what she’s about. And she was just amazing. Like, just so logical. And so like calm and and reassuring. It was just unreal. Like, and she just said,
listen, like you’ve birthed off this baby. There’s no reason you can’t breastfeed your baby, like you’ve got this. And I was like, she’s right. I have got this like, I have birthed a baby. There’s no reason I can’t.
She’s got like this little technique where she calls it Bung the Baby on the Boob technique, rather than the Latch and Attaching. And I was like, Okay, I’ll give it a go. I’ll try anything.
And I bunged the the baby on the boob. And it worked.
And she put loads of weight on and that was it like, game changer. And I thought, OK then that was easy enough. I met her when Leni was about just over a week old. And she was like, right, listen, you’ve got this. And I was like, okay, yeah. And then this issue, I was like, Rachel, and she was like, you’ve got this come on!.
And like these people do come in, and they just like change your world don’t they?
because at that moment, that’s exactly what you need.
I don’t go into town or anything very often just because of COVID and stuff. I was quite careful. And so yeah, I’ve just basically feed whenever, wherever we are. I’ve never had a negative comment. But I think that’s sometimes the confidence that you’ve got with it. Because there’s a couple of girls in the breastfeeding group and like, oh, like someone said something, or someone looked at me like this. And I’m like, really? And they were like, yeah, have you never had it? and I’m like, I might just be a little bit blind to it. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve got like a I Dare You to Come at me sort of attitude, generally
I just feed wherever we are. Like, the other day I was in the park with her and she came up to me and asked me for milk and I was like, yeah if you want, fine. And I was with a friend whose sons about four or five and she was like, Oh God, don’t really want him seeing that because he’ll be starting to ask me questions, and I was like, I’m not bothered.
I’ll answer any question that he’s got.