How did you feel watching your wife breastfeed your baby?

It felt the right thing, it just felt very natural it just felt right really, that was the only thing I can think and very happy and quite emotional about the whole thing but of course it was, you know, the whole roller coaster of the baby arriving and then the reality dawning and seeing the whole thing sort of take place very, very touching, very moving, very moving.

Can you describe the emotion?

Joy, I mean weve got a lot of photographs of me at the time holding my daughter just sort of staring at her, and you know, I’d been at the hospital as soon as I was allowed to be and because my wife was in hospital for a few days just afterwards, first baby and, you know, a few complications, but we were, you know, I was in hospital every opportunity, just going home to get changed and occasionally to eat but that was about it, but absolute joy, absolute joy, and it hasn’t changed.

I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve changed peoples opinions on breastfeeding I’m very proud of the fact that I managed to breastfeed comfortably and make other people feel comfortable about breastfeeding. I think my whole breastfeeding relationship with me and my daughter is definitely something that ‘proud’ is the main word that I’d look back and use for it now. I’m proud that my daughter achieved what she achieved while she was breastfeeding, I’m proud that I managed to change so many peoples opinions and, I’m proud that I kept strong throughout you know everything and always came through so yeah, proud is definitely a huge word when it comes to me and my breastfeeding relationship.

I decided I wanted to have a home birth when I was pregnant with my son because I’d had quite a difficult experience giving birth to my daughter and then I’d had not the very nice experience in the hospital afterwards and I just felt that I didn’t want to go through that again. I’d read quite a lot on home births and just decided that I’d like to do that if I could, and I was so lucky that the midwife I had was wonderful. I was so nervous about going to see her and talk about it, and when I went to see her she said I’d be delighted to deliver your baby at hom which is exactly what I wanted to hear. And he was born at home, he was born in my bedroom on my bed [laughs] where he duly spent the next two years of his life. And it was wonderful and it was actually quite a dramatic birth because he came very fast but apart from that, you know, everything was great and yeah I wouldn’t have changed it at all. I wouldn’t have changed anything about my son or this baby’s births at all and they were both born at home.

So when was your son put to the breast first?

He was put to the breast about, less than an hour after being, after being born something that I sort of felt, something that I’d read that breastfeeding you need to get it established, you know, try it within the first hour and it can make such a difference. And he fed for about fifteen minutes, my only, the only problem I had with, with the first feed that I had with my son was that the midwife, she was very hands on and I think it was just her style and she was lovely, she was a really nice person, but I laid on my side and she literally lifted up my breast and sort of shoved it [laughs] in the baby’s mouth, and the baby fed fine and I can’t complain at all about how it went but I just felt that was a bit too, personal, which probably sounds ridiculous because the woman had just delivered my baby [laughs], you know, we were on a personal level but that was my only, my only complaint was that I felt that, I wished shed just sort of left me alone to do it myself, not only for, you know, not that I felt that she did anything wrong in any way at all but, also for getting my confidence, if she could have seen how I’d done it, she could’ve then said, Yes that’s goo and I would’ve been confident for once she had left. Whereas I didn’t have that, although we were lucky we didn’t have any problems, and the midwives were very supportive and they came back every day for the first week or so and things, things were fine so I was quite lucky, I think I was very lucky.

Yeah getting in touch with my body through the pregnancy and through the breastfeeding. Well I don’t know, while yore in the pregnancy the hormones were so strong because I was, like really going through a process of withdrawal because I was nurturing myself through a process of withdrawal and using yoga and swimming to help that process I was, producing my own endorphins, I was pretty fit, I was producing strong hormones and they were just totally evident during my pregnancy. When the breastfeeding came along and it came to that point, God I have, I mean at that point I [laughs] it was almost a back seat, I just wanted to, get somewhere safe with [daughter], without people picking on me. And, I ended up staying with my school friens mum and there we shared a bed and so it was, you know, it wasn’t, you know, again I’d get a lot of stuff from, from her and from them about, you know, don’t over-breastfeed and, you know, do it at certain times and, you know, let the baby be on their own a lot and don’t, you know, carry them round all the time. it’s all like, you know [laughs].

How do you feel about that sort of stuff now?

Well I just, I just feel, oh right that was the right context, you know, they bailed me out of this situation, and she came all the way to London and said, “ll let her live in my place, she can keep her baby”. Look I was in another subservient position and I just had to sort of like, take it and like, you know, take on as much as I, because it was all well meant, there was no, theres nothing not well meant in any of the regulation that was going on. But just basically tried to go with my own instinct.

don’t answer this one if you don’t want to but I’m wondering was your decision to breastfeed in any way a lever to make sure you kept your baby with you?

I wouldt put it as strongly as saying it’s a lever, but it was absolutely obvious to me and [daughter] that we were, we hadt landed in the, safe place we expected to land, and through the pregnancy, I know there were lots of ups and downs but I was really making an effort to try and make sure that she, in a physical form landed in a safe place, and it was a safe place but it was quite different to what we both were heading for in terms of a ship going on a particular course or something, and so we were drawn together very much by the breastfeeding, we were drawn together by everything. And then when I came to live here it was a bit, it was a bit different and so I would even say that probably, you know, maybe that’s where I mighve started to get it wrong because, you know, she was happily breastfed and shes still happily breastfeeding and, you know, this doest seem like theres any, you know, wve talked about her stopping when shes four, on her birthday, and that’s what we talk about now, all the other drinks shes going to have instead.

Second time round was, was a very interesting experience I learnt a huge amount from breastfeeding the second time. Having done it once I was confident that I knew what I was doing I had however under-estimated I think the, the difference in demands that would be on me in terms of breastfeeding, with a very small child around at the same time, and so my little boy was nineteen months old when I had the second child [sighs], oh and everything started off okay, with breastfeeding, but I did have really quite significant problems in terms of sleep deprivation, I was absolutely exhausted [laughs] by about week four when my little girl was born just because of the demands of having a nineteen month old at the same time. And, I got into a bit of a vicious circle of finding it difficult to sit and breastfeed while my little boy was needing attention, and so when feeds weren’t happening, doing a lot of activities with my little boy, getting extremely tired, not having the chance to sleep in the same way that you do when you only have one. And physically just being exhausted, and then probably about week six or week seven just finding that the baby wasn’t settling at all and so I was getting more and more tired, and eventually I concluded that the tiredness was actually affecting the quality of the feeds that I was giving to the baby. So she wasn’t settling, so I wasn’t resting, so the quality of the milk was getting worse, and she wasn’t settling, and I wasn’t resting, and it was a cycle that I got into which was horrendous. By about week eight I was at the point where she was, she was hardly sleeping for more than an hour and a half at a time, she just was, was obviously not happy.

What was happening to her weight at this stage?

Well I don’t know because I didn’t actually get her weighed, that was different experience with, with the first one I, I’d, I lost sort of, I lost interest and faith in the whole weighing [laughs] procedure I just sort of, my personal view is that too much emphasis is put on weighing babies at that very early stage and for me it started to be counterproductive in terms of my own feelings about nurturing and nourishing my baby. And I could see that he was thriving despite that fact that he was towards the lower end of the spectrum in terms of weight. But there was this constant reference to the sort of [sighs] point on the chart that he was at, and I didn’t feel it was helping me or him to be constantly told that he was still only at the eighth centile and so I stopped having him weighed and with my little girl.

So how did you tell that he was okay?

Well I had plenty people who knew about babies like my mum and sisters, reinforcing that, it was more with our little girl that I literally didn’t ever take her to be weighed. If a health visitor called round and wanted to weigh her that was fine I wasn’t going to say no, but I wasn’t going to just make a special trip to go and get her weighed because, I didn’t see the point.

Ok, right.

So in terms of her weight gain, I wasn’t really sure whether she was okay or not but she was developing in terms of, you know, starting to be more aware and holding her arms out and grabbing things and the, the milestones that you look for, and so I didn’t have any particular concerns about the fact that she was undernourished as such, it was just this cycle of not sleeping properly and my physical deterioration really and an onset of mastitis which didn’t help.

Tell me a bit more about mastitis.

The mastitis manifested itself through me feeling just very, very unwell very, very suddenly and I’m the sort

I think knowing that you can do something, breastfeeding is, it kind of kept me going, and as I say my husband was so encouraging, he felt we were doing something for her, and you do, and at times it’s really quite difficult to go and keep going, and keep getting into the routine of, but if you can just keep, keep going it really is worth it, and the fact that she started breastfeeding again is just, miraculous in some ways I, I didn’t think she would. After such a long period of time and it was great when we finally got her to drink from a cup, but the fact that I could give her, I sort of felt I was giving her, I don’t know nutrients and, and, just a chance to fight infection and, a whole variety of different, different things, it really kept me going through it in some ways, it gave me something back and I’m sure it was good for her.

Was that all it was about providing the nutrients and stuff or was there some other deeper psychological sort of connection or bonding or whatever of providing for this child?

It’s a difficult question, it’s always difficult to kind of split the psychological with the practical, I suppose that I mean, there is a psychological side and yes you feel like you’re kind of doing something for your child, you’re so helpless in that situation. And you are therefore doing something, you can go off each day, and the encouragement from the nurses was absolutely fabulous actually they used to laugh and go off and say, “And here comes Daisy’, as I came back but, yeah you, I think there is a psychological side as well you really feel as if you’re doing something. It’s also, it’s knowing that theres, you never quite know what’s going to happen the next day, I suppose the idea that you’re continuing to breastfeed means that psychologically I suppose the idea is that you’re actually going to get back to normal at some point, but psychologically it’s, I think so it probably keeps you going as well.

So was that what kept you going that feeling that at some stage you would get back to normality?

I think it’s not necessarily about, it’s not necessarily about going back to normality, you don’t really think, you kind of focus on the now and the immediacy of the day and, and you get into a routine, and then you just kind of, yeah, you kind of feed her. It’s funny it’s almost even down to the fact that you know that she needs feeding every four hours, it’s best that you kind of get, kind of know that you want to give her some breastmilk, you kind of you go and you do it and you get into the routine again actually as well as moving forward.

So this was something that allowed you to order your days in this surreal environment?

I think actually, it doesn’t really allow you to order your day, because your day is what it is and it is a fixed day and you have your ward rounds and the doctors and the nurses, you’ve got, you actually have to force yourself to do it quite a lot. But, it’s bizarre it, it’s difficult to explain because it, it does force you into a kind of routine as well, you’re kind of having to force yourself to get into a routine and yeah it does, at the end of the day you are trying, you are hoping that you’re going to get back to normal. I think theres, that’s, as you say, theres the psychological side of it, you don’t think about it at the time but you are hoping at the end of all this if we get back to normal, then you’ll take them home, my husband kept saying to me, you know, ‘The thing that’ll keep us going is we will go home, the three of us will go home at the end of this’ and we did, so, and everything did go back to normal so, I suppose, if you can keep doing this because it’s, it’s very.

The truth is lots of cleft palate babies can breastfeed. Some, especially cleft lip babies because you can just put a seal on the lip and they can feed, and often if theres a discreet hole in the, in the palate they can breastfeed, but my son had a massive hole in his mouth and it wasn’t going to happen and I guess I wish I’d had external support to bring me to that realisation sooner because I put him through a lot, you know, he became quite breast averse because he would just get squirted in the eye with all my milk while I was trying. But and I realised well I wanted him to get comfort from me, once or maybe twice he fell asleep at my breast not having fed but that was just something that I want, I held onto so much, I used to find it very, very painful being at regular Mum and Tots groups, seeing people breastfeeding, it was very much like a, as if I had a baby and he was growing, and he was, I wouldn’t say he was well at this time but he was with me, I actually to use the word grieving seems terrible when people do lose babies, but it felt like a grief, because it was a loss of something that I had so wanted to do and was very important to me.

After the operation did you try to put him to the breast at all?

I did have this fantasy that after the operation, if I could keep my milk going till after the op, not only would he have benefited from my milk but we might be able to breastfeed. And I did try, quite a few times, but the truth was, it was more for me than him because it, he well he didn’t get the comfort from being at the breast, he didn’t know what it was for, what it was about, what he needed was cuddles and I gave him plenty of those. And it was sort of a second moment of mourning when I realised that it was never going to happen but I could, give myself a lot of comfort from all the goodness I’d given him. My goodness most of these Pierre Robin babies when you see them go into theatre, they’re scrawny little things, they generally are not strong babies because they generally have such a tough time taking in any food and liquid whereas mine, hes quite beefy even pre-op, and I felt quite proud that all of that had come from me all apart from the first few weeks of solids that we were just beginning to introduce. So I knew I had done all I could for him and that was very kind of curative, that was very empowering because it was a tough six months the first six months hed had and into the first year, I mean to be honest you look back and you just think, ‘How this can be the same boy’ because hes so, hes doing so well.

I think, looking back on it, it, I was lonely, and I don’t think I didn’t actually get postnatal depression, I wonder how but I didn’t, I was lonely and I guess I was quite tense, I spent probably, up to eighteen hours on my own in a typical day, and I guess all that then fed into an anxiety around breastfeeding so.

What aspect, what was it that you were anxious about? Do you remember?

I think that I, it was, anxiety overall about the fact that I was, I was probably so lonely and on my own that then, it negatively affected the way that feeding went. I remember my first baby crying a lot, I think that it felt like she cried for twenty hours a day, and I mean I can remember my mum-law came out to be with me for about three weeks after I came out of hospital because I’d had a caesarean section and I can remember the two of us being in tears with this baby crying so much, I mean shes an experienced mother of two and so I think that, looking back on it, yeah my baby cried a lot, I was probably anxious about that, which fed into her anxiety, and we just didn’t gel really as a, as a mum and baby, we love each other to bits now but we didn’t gel as a mum and baby I think for, probably, the first six months of her life. So it was, yeah, feeding was probably one symptom of all the other things that were going on around my anxiety about being somewhere that I, really wished I hadn’t been really, being so far away from people that I felt close to.

So you said the weight gain was fine?

It was, looking back on it, it was excellent, she was a scrappy little two point four kilo baby born, and if I’d had my lets say, my midwifery head? Yeah am I? No don’t want it? No okay, right okay.

Just say my midwifery head.

So, yeah she was a scrappy little two point four kilo baby born and that was at term so she, you know, so she was little. Looking back on it she was actually feeding really quite well and her weight gain was good and, so I think that I was probably anxious about, you know, being lonely and didn’t want to admit it and I kind of, if it makes sense, I took it out on the feeding, and the feeding became the problem but actually the feeding wasn’t the problem, it was the fact that I was on my own all the time because I couldn’t drive at that point, so I really was stuck, on the ninth floor of this huge apartment block, and I do remember you know, my husband and I we laugh about it now but, I used to take my baby for walks around the car park, and there was nothing else to do and just, you know, and all that I think fed into what I portrayed as an anxiety about feeding so, interesting.

Is there anything else you want to say?

Nothing other than, I do think, and again it’s only based on my experience, it, it may not be accurate but, I do think that how women do with feeding, whether they live up to their expectations is something that I think potentially they carry with them for a long time. So, and I think that it does go on to perhaps affect the relationship they have with their baby for some time to come. I do still occasionally have, have guilt feelings about the fact that I didn’t do as well at feeding first time round, you know, I’m really very close to my oldest daughter but you do, I do sometimes reflect and think goodness how did I manage to have done so, so badly at it?’ but then you look at the way I was living and you think of course that I, you know, why it didn’t go according to plan’, so.

Can I ask you about your determination to breastfeed? What did you know about breastfeeding when you were pregnant?

I didn’t really, to be honest I didn’t look into it, my mother had breastfed, my mother’s side of the family, my grandmother, my aunt, had all breastfed so they were very much for, my partner’s mother hadn’t and not, I don’t think many of his family had so it’s , but because I’ve grown up like that and I’d grown up watching my aunt breastfeed my cousins etcetera, to me that was just what happened there wasn’t another option I wasn’t, I didn’t look into it I just and I just naively assumed it was easy, which I think, you know, for some people is it but not for all people and there is, you know, it can be hard, but going back to it I, because I had this bad labour and I felt a bit of a failure for not doing things my, I felt I didn’t do things myself because it was assisted, that made me even more determined to succeed at breastfeeding, because I didn’t want to give up on the two things that were really important to me because, you know, unlike some women and I was really looking forward to the labour, that was a very special thing for me to have a natural special labour was, something that I was looking forward to and enjoy rather than being scared of, and with the breastfeeding I was looking forward to that. So when my labour didn’t quite go to plan it made me even more determined that I was going to succeed at one of the things that I set out to do.

And that made you feel better about things?

Yeah, yeah definitely I, because I was confronted with so many problems, you know, now that I’ve got over that and it is a pleasure to feed but in looking back I do feel very proud that I stuck with it. So I go to a breastfeeding group, Bosom Buddies, and they’ve been fantastic there as well, the support that I receive there is fantastic. And all the time they say, you know, how much they admire me because not a lot of younger mums these days do breastfeed or they, you know, according to them they said, you know, they perhaps wouldn’t have stuck with it as much as what I’ve done, so that’s nice to hear, it’s always nice isn’t it when you get praise but yeah.

I wish I’d been more pragmatic. But you’re so overwhelmed and so distressed, and everything around you is saying that breast is best. And I do believe that, and I would’ve done it if I could. And it, it, yeah, and all the support out there, all the official formal support is saying breast is best. And it’s only when, then, you actually sort of scour beneath and you have conversations with other mums, or you look on mumsnet or all those, you know, Internet things, that theres somebody sort of says, Actually, yeah, I did struggle. And I think to have, yeah, I think it’s really important that there is that balanced view of it. Yes, breast is best. If you can. But if you can’t, then, then, yeah, don’t beat yourself up about it. I think I just, I thought I was a, I was a failure as a mum. I felt, I felt like I’d let down, and I’d let myself down, I’d let our baby down. I’d just, yeah. The thing that is meant to be the most natural thing in the world and I couldn’t do it. And, yeah. And I, it sounds silly for me. I’ve always, I’ve always been quite pleased with the size of my bosom. You know what I mean, like, I always, you know, I’d buy tops that enhance it or, and so you sort of think, Oh, you know, they’re actually, the thing that they’re meant for, they’re failing at. You know, they’re, they’re big enough to surely have enough milk in there. And, but then they’re not to be, you’re sort of going, Well, how is that possible? How could, you know? This is just meant to happen. So, yeah, I’d, yeah. It was the most upsetting that, just the worst, yeah. Just, I, and you, you look, I looked for support and I couldn’t find it

But yes, I did feel like a failure. Yes, I did feel that I wasn’t a very good mum and, you know, I felt that isolated. And, you know, there was some indication but it, for me, it wasn’t an indication of postnatal depression. It was an indication of, theres this thing that is not working that’s kind of central to all the other things working. So, you know, if it, they always say, you know, If a baby cries, they’re either hungry, they need their nappy changing or they’re tired. And I’m sort of going, Well, I can change his nappy as much as I like, but actually if hes hungry hes not going to sleep. And so it felt like the hunger was just this central point to all of these other things that weren’t going well. And, and so until I addressed that hunger, then all of the other things that are, you know, should happen, shouldn’t. So it was sort of, yeah, just feeling like I had, like I had failed at the, you know, the thing that, the only, the thing that mums need to do without even trying, I was failing at. So how could I be a good mum otherwise? And so you sort of, I just felt a complete mess.

This time it wasn’t, it wasn’t much different. This time I did the same but this time I was prepare.

I had everything I could possibly have, I had nipple cream, I had the training, I watched the video, I read the books, I have a doula with me, a friend, a friend I could trust. I have, I even bought nipple shields and I used everything I could, I did everything I could possibly do. But then I was still obsessed with the, I’ve got to do it, this, my boobies are not going to win, I’m going to win, I’m going to be able.

But then it got to a point my chest was covered in, were covered in blood. I was in so much pain that my breasts felt like they were on fire, like my whole chest felt on fire. And the last thing I did was the – he start crying, I took the nipple shield, I tried to feed him with the nipple shield and even the, even with the nipple shield it was extremely painful.

And I was, he was crying, I was crying and then my partner came in and said, What are you doing? Stop it. I just going to give him formula, it’s not the end of the world. He had to convince again – to me it was really sad, I spent a couple of nights, I felt, I felt like a, I was grieving that I couldn’t breastfeed for five days. But, but when the midwife hand me over again to the health visitor, the health visitor talked to me, she realised that I did the best, I did as much as I could to breastfeed. And she told me, Well, I must let you know, that there is a small percent of people who can’t physically breastfeed, like it’s, it’s not physically possible.

And she asked me, Do you suffer from, from cysts in your breasts? From lumps? And I said, Yes. OK, that’s one of, could be one of the reasons, because your tissue doesn’t heal quickly enough to carry on doing this, so if you might actually be doing more harm than good, on the one hand. And on the other hand if you’re, if you are not well enough to look after baby who’s going to look after him, he needs you. So it’s better for mum to be good, baby’s happy, you are happy. And then it will go, and, she said – and then made me feel a little bit better but I was still secretly crying like, I didn’t tell my boyfriend that I was crying. Like, Oh, I can’t breastfeed. It was really horrible. But I still feel -well is the best I could have done?

Have you had a let-down when you’ve been out in public or somewhere else where the baby’s not with you?

I have yes, particularly to start with I don’t get it so much now that shes, that shes six months but I did used to get it quite a lot whether the baby was with me or not, I would be feeling a let-down. I’ve never been one of these people that it’s been triggered by seeing other peoples babies, or hearing other peoples babies cry, but there was one time I was in [Supermarket], I was visiting my parents and we nipped to the shops to get some photographs developed, and I left the baby with my partner and said to him, ‘Phone me when she starts to wake up and I’ll come back. And when he phoned we were in the queue, at the till, and it was a really, really long queue and I could hear the baby in the background, I could hear her crying, now I’d heard probably four or five babies around [Supermarket] and none of those had had any effect, I could hear my baby down the phone and there was milk everywhere, the milk just started flowing and I had to abandon my stuff in the queue, well I left it with, with my dad and just had to go home because there was just milk everywhere so, that was probably the worst one. I’ve had a few minor ones but that was probably the worst one, and I think that was because I could hear her, I could that was what she wanted and, you know, you’re a mother and you can feel it in your tummy that your baby’s crying and she needs you and, you know, nobody else could give her what she wanted and it was just I had to get back as soon as I could and by the time I got back my t-shirt was drenched so that was the worst let-down I ever had away from her.