Adoptive Breastfeeding Confessional

Today, Lucy/Teresa is one month old. I am sad. But, I am very happy for my brother-in-law and new sister-in-law, who had a beautiful wedding on Friday and are now honeymooning in Chile. J and I were in Minneapolis for the wedding this weekend and had a wonderful time with J's family there. We are back home now and have very few plans between now and the birth of Clio. Now that I'm in full waiting mode and have little to distract me, I'm starting to accept the reality of Clio and I'm confronting some decisions that need to be made. The primary issue is what I'm going to do about feeding her. So...

Another thing I haven't written about much, because I have felt very conflicted about it: my experience with preparing to breastfeed Lucy. The last I wrote about it was April 26, after getting my (stolen goods) hospital pump in the mail. I tried to post about it several times in May and June but I wanted to wait until I had something concrete to say, and then...well, here's what went down (warning, some of this is kinda TMI):

Late April through May: I used my pump between twice and five times per day, usually while watching TV. I am not a morning person and only at first was I able to make myself pump in the morning before work. After that, I'd pump after I got home from school and then before going to bed. The amount of time varied from 15 minutes to an hour (sometimes I'd be watching TV and the time would just slip away from me, I got used to the sound of the pump and it didn't bother me). On weekends I'd pump up to five times during the day. Because I did this in front of the TV, I started watching things like The Real Housewives of Orange County because I would empty out my Tivo "Now Playing" list so quickly. Sigh. The pump didn't hurt at first, but I noticed that around the time of my period I would have some pain and ended up getting advice from online friends to use olive oil as a lubricant. Giggle. After pumping, I'd use Lanisoh to prevent irritation and cracking, and the combination of olive oil and Lanisoh led to several of my shirts and tank tops having oil stains you-know-where. Just a warning to those of you who may follow suit, don't wear shirts you like. I had heard/read that nipple stimulation can lead to milk production without any other intervention, but because I've never been pregnant (and thus never had the associated breast changes) I wasn't surprised when all of this pumping got me exactly zero milk. I told myself, however, that I was toughening up my nipples for later. Yeah, right.

Mid-May: Because my pumping wasn't producing any milk, I decided to take the plunge and buy medication from an online pharmacy. I was wary at first of trying medication because I have allergies and asthma and already take medicine every day for those. I don't like adding pills to my regimen unless absolutely necessary. But, I decided to go ahead and try. Around this time I was diagnosed with my fibroid and need for surgery, so I kept the meds until after I recovered.

Early June: I began taking meds (while continuing to pump) and, after a week, began producing small amounts of milk. In April, I wrote that I refused to wake up in the middle of the night to pump, but as soon as I got those first few drops of milk while pumping, I went a little nutsy and started sleeping with my cell phone on vibrating alarm mode to wake me up in the middle of the night, so that I could pump every 3 hours without fail. I can't figure out how to describe accurately how it felt to see milk coming out of my nipples. It made me feel like a super-hero. It made me amazed at how God created women. It made me feel like a mother. All of those cliches and more. After about a week and a half of this, I was pumping a few milliliters from each breast each time. It doesn't seem like much, but it was better than nothing. Other mothers and the literature told me that I shouldn't worry; Lucy would be better than the pump at extracting milk and stimulating my breasts to produce more (J, the engineer, thought it was ridiculous to think that a newborn could do better than an expensive pump).

Mid-June: one night, I awoke to feel my heart pumping irregularly. It felt as though it were pumping from right to left in my chest, jumping from side to side. It was unlike anything I'd ever felt my heart do, and I knew immediately that it was a side effect of the medication. I talked to my dad about it (he's an MD) and he said that while it wasn't going to give me a heart attack, because I'm young and my heart is healthy, it is tiring for my heart to have an arrhythmia, and so I needed to stop the meds. So, I did. My heart immediately went back to normal. And, a few days later, although I kept up my 8x per day (middle of the night included) pumping schedule, I stopped producing milk.

Late June: I decided to stop pumping because without any milk it seemed silly to go through the motions, which would have been quite inconvenient to accomplish in the hospital during Lucy's birth, etc.

Now: I (of course) won't be taking meds again, and I think that without the meds it's very unlikely that I'll produce any milk. I have two choices:

1. Feed Clio with a bottle of formula and use nursing as a bonding experience only (I'll be a human pacifier, not a source of food). Pros: J can help with feeding and bottles are easier to clean; Cons: feeding from a bottle might give Clio what's called "nipple confusion" and make any sort of nursing relationship difficult or impossible.

2. Feed Clio with a Lact-Aid and hope that the stimulation helps my breasts produce milk. Pros: Clio will learn how to nurse and it will be a good bonding experience with her, plus, there are benefits for her ears and jaw development that come from nursing, not just from breast milk. Cons: using the Lact-Aid can be a PITA and a hassle to clean the tiny tubes between each feeding, especially while staying in a hotel in Kansas for a week.

I'm very conflicted right now. I know that many of you who read this will think I'm a bit crazy, or a lot crazy, for being so attached to the possibility of adoptive breastfeeding, and it's hard for me to explain how I feel about it. I'm not in denial, trying to pretend that I'm Clio's biological mother. I'm not trying to put enormous pressure on myself to be super-mother; I know that no mother is perfect. What I am trying to do is give myself and Clio this amazing, natural experience of mother-baby bonding through nursing. I've heard so many women talk about nursing a baby as one of the most wonderful and rewarding experiences of being a mother, and I feel (stubbornly) that I don't want to have to give that up. I feel gypped that I might never get to see a positive pregnancy test and feel a baby kick inside of me. I feel sad that I'll never have a natural childbirth. I'm still grieving the fact that I may never get to mother a kid whose genes are a combination of J and me. I don't want to add to that a feeling of remorse that I never experienced a breastfeeding relationship either.

I know that this subject can be controversial; it is one battle in the "mommy wars" that can rage between well-intentioned women who make different mothering choices. For the record, I don't at all judge or disapprove of women who choose to bottle feed. This is about me and Clio, not about anyone else.