Breastfeeding: The Biggest Lesson in my Healing Journey

Breastfeeding: The Biggest Lesson in my Healing Journey

 

by Lindsay Gibson. Find her and more about her incredible story here

Looking at my oldest daughter Lillian, who is almost twelve-years-old, laughing as she chats away on her computer with her friends – I couldn’t help but laugh with her. While I have no idea what they are gossiping about with each other, I still smiled in amusement and awe because I can’t believe how grown she already is. I still remember the first time I looked down at her as she scrambled to latch onto my breast.

Next, I look over at my other daughter Layla, only three – or should I say “threen-ager”? Happily playing with her sister’s old Barbie dolls and trying to brush their wild, damaged hair. Not all of them have clothes on and haven’t for years, as they collected dust in the playroom before Layla was born.

“Look mama! She has boobies like you! Where’s her baby to give her milk to?” Layla called out from across the room and I hear Lillian gasp – mortified that her friends might have heard her. I smile at Layla, but the smile fades a little as the memory of her first feeding was not the same as with her sister.

Breastfeeding my girls has been one of the most up and down experiences of my motherhood journey, but one of the many battles that I am proud of today.

If you asked me three years ago with Layla if I was proud, my answer would have been a quick no, which is surprising considering with Lillian - it came so “naturally”. 

Truth is, I was just a young girl still in college when I had Lillian and felt so out of control with every other aspect of being a new mom such as: financials, where we were going to live, how I was going to be a mom so young – that every time she latched on, I felt myself relax. It was like that was the one thing I did have control over and felt powerful doing it. It also helped that I never googled anything with her or read any books because while I was terrified, I didn’t want to get myself more worked up than I already was back then. So, while breastfeeding was a big high for me with Lillian, everything else was full of ups and downs for my husband and I to get our lives stable for her.

The one-year mark came and went, and she was a champion feeder and eater! I remember kissing her chubby thighs and laughing at each meal as she shoved food in her mouth a mile a minute. She still does that to this day! Strangers often looked at us in public while I breastfed her after she tuned one and rolled their eyes. Finally, one woman asked me one day, as I sat nursing her on a park bench, “why on earth are you still nursing her?” My young mommy self-doubt intensified as I looked up at this strange woman and I couldn’t find the words to answer her. Instead, I looked away in shame. Was I doing something wrong?

Despite that judgmental experience with that woman, I kept going and knew one thing: I didn’t want to let go of how breastfeeding helped me to feel more like a mom than a young girl who wasn’t ready to raise her. I also knew, that Lillian was a happy and thriving toddler, always making me laugh and full of life. So, we kept going until one day at two, she decided she was all done. The let down of weaning was intense but I was ready for the next set of challenges with her!

When Layla was born nine years later – all I could think about were those two years I nursed Lillian and how it made me feel confident and empowered. I naively thought it would be the same with Layla. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Let me back track a bit first. The year before I had Layla, I lost her brother Joseph at 26 weeks gestation. Layla was born one year later and came in like a wrecking ball, shaking up my already fragile world even more.

The very first moment came to breastfeed her and it was nothing like I expected. She latched, then didn’t, then screamed – and that stayed on repeat. Worst of all, I was internally falling apart even more because of my own struggles as a grief mama and trauma survivor. Layla’s birth was bringing it all out. 

The question became, did Joseph’s death play a direct role in breastfeeding Layla? Yes, in many ways it did and in many ways it did not. How it impacted my breastfeeding her was because I held onto this “perfect” image of my days with Lillian and felt that once I had Layla latched on, it would push all of my grief away. That it would somehow make me love myself more and hate my body less as a stillborn mama. I just wanted to succeed again as a mother with my rainbow baby and in some way prove to myself with breastfeeding that losing Joseph did not mean I couldn’t mother my girls. 

Not only did breastfeeding become a battle, everything else just continued to fall apart.

Postpartum Depression came crashing in like a tidal wave – on top of desperately trying to get her to latch. My husband and I spent hours upon hours feeding her with a syringe and manually pumping out all the colostrum we could get for her. By day four, I collapsed into a ball of tears and an anger burst out of me that I never saw coming.

“SEE!” I screamed to my husband, “SEE! I AM NOT FIT AS A WOMAN! WHY DID I EVEN THINK I WAS?” My husband only knew to hug me in this moment, knowing that my outburst was more than just getting Layla to latch. I was a mama in grief still and ignoring it.

I put so much pressure on myself with breastfeeding to counteract the grief and postpartum depression I was in. I desperately clung to my experience with Lillian, sometimes hoping I would wake up and I was back in time with just Lillian, laughing and breastfeeding together with joy.

After weeks of battling this and postpartum depression, we learned that Layla was tongue-tied. Correcting this didn’t exactly make it any smoother but it did give me room to somewhat breathe and feel a little more in control. Did I want to give up? Every single day. Should I have just given up? There is absolutely no one answer to that question as every woman is different. For me, I chose to keep trying just one more day – over and over.

My breastfeeding journey turned out to be one of the biggest lessons of my entire healing journey.

I learned that there is no right way to grieve when I lost my Joe – but with Layla I learned that there is also no right way to feed either. We as mothers do what we know in our hearts that is best for our little ones. This intuitive connection we have as moms is what I kept forgetting with Layla. I also learned that each of my children will bring out new paths in motherhood that I need to just jump onto and enjoy the ride. I learned that these paths show us things about ourselves and the world that we would never find anywhere else – because our babies are perfectly matched for us with nothing but beautiful divine love. I learned that while breastfeeding Lillian was easier, I was only ignoring what was really keeping me from growing as a mom due to lack of confidence at the time. Now I have both girls in my hands – open and ready for each of them to show me life in their own unique ways.

Most importantly, I learned that all our children need – is love.

Layla and I finally found our rhythm after finding the right help. We got her realigned with chiropractic care, natural care that helped her reflux, a pediatric dentist to fix her tongue tie and most importantly – healing modalities that finally worked to help me recover from my past. After all, a healthy mama is a happy baby. I proudly breastfed her past two years – feeling stronger than ever.

If I could see that woman from the park bench that day with Lillian, I know that I could look up at her now with a confident and loving smile, and as a mother – that is everything.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week Mamas!