I Failed When It Came to Breastfeeding

The author with her son, Max. Photo courtesy of Jaime Primak Sullivan.

Before becoming a mother, I was prepared for all the parenting mistakes: buying the wrong size diapers, cutting fingernails too short, running the bath water too hot. But I was not prepared for parenting failure. And that’s exactly what I believed I’d done — failed, twice — when it came to breastfeeding.

The day my first child, Olivia, was born, I showed up at the hospital with all my nursing materials — the pillow, the bras, the breast pads, the lanolin cream, the burp cloths. I was ready to go. That’s because I am the person who always has a plan, and once it’s executed, I do not accept failure. I call it the “breaking-and-entering” mentality: I see a closed door and before I even approach it, I know how I will get in the back window if need be.  So when it came to breastfeeding, I approached it no differently.

STORY: My Husband Is the Perfect Dad — And It Almost Killed Our Marriage

Olivia was born nine pounds and perfect, and I put her to my boob and waited for the magic to happen. Only it didn’t. She couldn’t quite get it, and each latch was more painful than the last. But despite her having a suck so strong it left blisters on my nipples, my need for endless trips to the lactation consultant and pediatrician, three bouts of mastitis, and numerous clogged ducts, I was still determined to make it work. Or at least that’s what I was calling it: determination.

But I know now that it’s not what it was.

Everyone around me pleaded with me to stop nursing Olivia. She was thriving, while I was suffering both physically and mentally. The mastitis kept me sick, and the cracked, bleeding nipples never had a chance to heal, but still, I forged on. Then, when Olivia was just three months old, I found out I was pregnant with Max. I was an emotional wreck, and I had no idea how I was going to do it all over again. But because I had dealt with eight weeks of pre-term contractions with Olivia, my doctor suggested that I stop trying to nurse Olivia for the sake of a healthy second pregnancy. Finally, I had the only legit excuse I could handle for weaning Olivia.

Michael on bottle duty. Photo courtesy of Jaime Primak Sullivan.

When my pediatrician asked if I was going to try to nurse my next baby, it hit me: redemption. I would get another chance to succeed. And that’s when my fixation really began.

STORY: Why I Told My Daughter About My Bullying Past

When Max was born, he was big and hungry. He latched on in the hospital, but when we got home, it was a different story. After only five days I had mastitis again — but this time I had an 11-month-old as well as a new born. My milk came in with a vengeance, everything hurt, and I had no emotional support from anyone. I tried so hard to nurse Max, but his near hour-long feedings left Olivia fending for herself and Michael and my mother sneaking him bottles behind my back. I cried all the time, and then finally gave up — only I didn’t, not really. Inside, I was battling a fierceness I had never before experienced. Even now as I write this, several years later, I can feel that familiar burning in my throat and the tears that want to come.

After my milk dried up, I cried every day for months. The more distance that grew between Max and the boob, the more I obsessed over my failure. The self-torture I endured over the fact that I had failed and there was no way I could succeed was crippling. My opportunity to be a nursing mother, was gone. Michael worried that I had post-partum depression, but I didn’t. Otherwise, I was happy. I ate, I slept, and I loved my son. I was dealing with what I can only call breastfeeding psychosis and it was the hardest thing to make other people understand. I battled constant guilt, I beat myself up over not trying hard enough. I played it out in my mind over and over again, how I could have done it differently. My mother tried to assure me that Max was thriving and happy, and he was, but she couldn’t understand that I wanted to nurse him. I wanted my body to feed him. I wanted to succeed. I was mourning something that I could not get back.

One day when Max was five months old, something snapped in me. I thought: It’s not too late. I can still make this work! So I took my son into his room and tried to nurse him, I all but shoved my boob down his throat. I begged him, pleaded, but for so many reasons, it didn’t work. I had no milk, and Max had no idea what I was asking him to do. He started to cry and then I started to cry. I cried the saddest tears. Michael came in and took Max from my arms. I was mortified and overwhelmed, and felt so emotionally out of control because there was nowhere, no way, to hide that I had failed at nursing my son. I ran out into the back yard and fell to my knees. I punched the ground, ripped the grass out, and cried until there were no tears left.

When I came back into the house, Michael handed me our son and a bottle. It was time to let it go, he said. So I sat on the couch. And I fed my son.

I wish I could say I was over it, but if I did, I would be lying. To this day when someone asks me if I nursed my children, that familiar pain reappears as I try desperately to explain away my failure. And if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know if that will ever go away.

Jaime’s digital series #cawfeetawk can be seen daily on her Facebook page and YouTube channel.