I Hate Your Boobs
~By M. Giguere
If you’re a lucky mom who gets to say YES when people ask you, “Are you breastfeeding?” I have something to tell you. How do I say this in the nicest way possible? Hmmmm. Well, here goes. I hate your boobs. Now before you get all upset, please know that I hate my own boobs too.
At one of my more recent new mom support groups, the initial “Hey, nice to meet you” was followed up with “How chapped are your nipples?” Boobs, boobs, milk, and yes, boobs – that seemed to be all anyone talked about. By the end of the eight weeks I wanted to scream, “Please, moms, just please stop talking about breasts! I don’t care how engorged or leaky they are. I sure don’t want to hear about how victorious you feel for never having had to rely on (horror of horrors) formula.” If you’re moaning about your oversupply to a group of new mothers, you are most likely hurting another woman. And that woman could quite possibly be me.
I know breastfeeding is tough. Trust me, I KNOW! You want to talk about your issues. That’s fine. That’s exactly why there are breastfeeding support groups. Give La Leche a buzz. There are thousands of women just dying to talk about your boobs. Sometimes I feel like I’ve met them all.
Where do moms go when we feel so guilty and crushed about not being able to do what should be natural, what we so desperately want to do but our bodies won’t, no matter how hard we try? Where do we put these feelings? Since the answers to these questions continue to elude me, I’ve decided to simply hate any boobs that are able to do what mine couldn’t.
You don’t hear much from us boob-haters during support groups. We rarely talk about the hours we spend in rocking chairs trying to latch. How we’re pumping our brains out, drinking beer, eating herbs, and doing whatever else humanly and not humanly possible to increase our milk supply. Each and every day, we’re trying not to feel like failures as we mix another bottle of formula and post yet again on the ‘exclusively pumping’ message boards.
I struggled so much to give my baby breast milk. Even when I finally realized my body was simply not going to cooperate, I could not let go of the “if only” feeling. If only I’d only tried harder, if only I’d pumped more, if only I’d stayed with her every hour of every day while she was in the NICU, if only I’d been able to relax, lower my blood pressure, or eat more. Not being able to breastfeed my baby has felt like my single biggest personal failure.
Three weeks after my beautiful baby girl was born, my husband looked at me and said the most perfect thing. “She needs you more than she needs your milk.” He saw that I was slipping away, spiraling into a pit of guilt and shame. I was consumed and obsessed with why my body wasn’t working. We’d visited with no fewer than five lactation consultants. I’d used three different breast pumps with small, medium, and large flanges. I consumed so much fenugreek I smelled like an Indian restaurant.
One day in the NICU my baby didn’t wake to eat. On that day I produced 63ml of breast milk. It took nine, 20-minute pumping sessions to collect just a hair over two ounces. She didn’t wake up all day, so we saved it. The next morning a feeding tube was inserted to keep her from losing more weight and they pushed my day’s work into her body with a syringe. No mother should ever have to watch her child eat through a tube. 63ml was my high water mark. The next day, I pumped only 42ml and decided it was time to stop keeping track.
Here are some things you can say to a mom who is struggling (and you don’t even have to believe them):
1. It doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.
2. Thousands upon thousands of amazing women bond seamlessly with their babies without breastfeeding.
3. It gets easier. In six months it will be easier, in 10 months easier still, and eventually it will not matter a spec.
I’m forever indebted to the people who told me:
1. Formula is not poison.
2. You might decide to keep pumping, but you might find more enjoyable things to do with your time.
3. Your baby needs YOU more than your milk.
If you’re successfully breastfeeding, I’m happy for you, even if I do hate your boobs. Remember, I certainly don’t hate you – just your boobs.
Nurse your baby wherever you want, whenever you want. But please, just be grateful, enjoy it, and kindly shut the hell up. I don’t walk up to blind people and tell them how much there is to see in the world and how much I love seeing it. Be careful about what you ask a new mom. You don’t always know who might be sobbing along with the “wish-wash” of the breast pump every morning, noon, and night.
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Dear M.Giguere, ROCK ON!! I love your honesty, and your humor in addressing an issue that can shake a mom of a newborn (especially if it’s her first) to the core. As a clinical social worker, in a major teaching hospital in Boston, I lead new moms groups, and can tell you that the issue of breastfeeding comes up all the time. For those moms who have not struggled with learning to breastfeed, just know that you are very, very lucky. It’s not any particular skill, or natural sense of motherhood that made it easier for you than someone for whom breastfeeding didn’t work–you should know that. My hope that in knowing that, you will be aware and therefore sensitive to your fellow sister moms who might now be as lucky as you.
Enjoy your breastfeeding, but be kind, caring, and don’t judge your elevate yourself above other moms who may be giving their baby formula. We CAN all get along!
Great article! As an adoptive mom, I can somewhat identify. In the beginning, even though I was over the moon about being a mom, I couldn’t help but be a little jealous of the bio moms breastfeeding. Many months later, I can confidently say that my son and I could not be more bonded. Not to mention, my nipples haven’t changed a bit
Thanks so much your sharing your thoughts, Lauren!
Well said, mama! Another thing I don’t like – having to come up with an “excuse” that is virtuous enough for other people. How hard does a girl have to try before she’s tried “hard enough”? There are groups for us out there, and there are lot’s of like minded women. Keep sharing!
I hear you! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve uttered the words “you’d never guess but she was in the NICU for nearly 3 weeks…” It feels like a pretty lame excuse too when your baby is at the top of the growth charts (yeah!).
Okay, devil’s advocate here. What about people who have infertility? Widows? If we have children or husbands, do we have to ” shut the hell up” around those who don’t? Why the special consideration for mothers who use formula?
I never heard of a women who is infertile being told that she gave up to easily, that she didn’t try hard enough and that she is just using excuses cause ‘kids are best’ and if you don’t have children than you are not a real woman. I have had all those things said to me about being a formula feeding mother – which is a pity – as both a women with infertility issues and I have something in common – a reproductive medical issue where our bodies do not work the way they should. Women with infertility issues usually get treated with respect and compassion. Women with breastfeeding issues usually get treated like idiots that need to be reminded as often as possible that they are feeding their child the ‘wrong’ way.
If a woman who is infertile makes an informed and well researched choice to adopt a child, which is a solution to not being able to have her own children, it can bring her the same level of happiness and joy that having her own children can bring. Adoptive parents are usually supported and praised (rightly so) by their whole community. Yet if a women who can’t breastfeed makes an informed and well researched choice to formula feed, which is a solution to not being able to breastfeed, it can bring her the same level of happiness and joy that breastfeeding can bring except usually she is so reprimanded, put down and chastised by the ‘breast is best’ mantra that it can be difficult to enjoy feeding that way. Which is sad.
As a woman who has dealt with both infertility and not being able to breastfeed (once I conceived using IVF), let me just add that people make really insensitive comments in both areas. Many of my close friends had respect and compassion, but many others unfortunately were not. With breastfeeding I wasn’t trying to hard enough, with fertility all I heard was that I should just relax, go on vacation, not try so hard… as if that would magically make my fallopian tubes start functioning again. Still, I was totally shocked when after having a newborn how many people asked me about breastfeeding and gave me unsolicited advice. And not just moms! I couldn’t leave the house without someone reminding me about my breastfeeding “failure.”
I think it would be great if everyone could realize that what works for your family (infant feeding methods, parenting styles, family building options, etc.) doesn’t automatically work for everyone else.
Yes. People can be insensitive on any number of fronts. But there is often a difference in the intent. Telling all mothers that they need to “shut the hell up” about their breastfeeding experience seems to me, to be making a big assumption that all breastfeeding mothers intend to be malicious with sharing their experiences of breastfeeding.
If my experience has taught me anything [my experience being getting pregnant with twins, naturally, right out of the gate, losing 1 baby at 22 weeks and suffering from pre-eclampsia and needing an emergency c-section to save the other baby at 34 weeks, and breastfeeding failure] it’s this: when you body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to and the way you want it to, it hurts. It hurts more if everyone around you tells you how great it is that theirs works and how you can fix your issues. If a mom of twins ever said to me “gosh, I don’t know why you didn’t just relax, try harder and keep them both alive until birth” I’d be stunned (and I’d probably punch her lights out) but a number of breastfeeding moms have said “why didn’t you pump more?”; “if you had latched more in the early days you would have gotten a supply”; “maybe your body didn’t develop correctly during puberty”. I just think there is room for more compassion. I also think it would help to accept some truths, some people can’t get pregnant, some people can’t bring babies to term, some people can’t breastfeed. If you’re lucky, just be glad, you never know what other challenges life has in store.
“How you fill their tummy is not as important as how you fill their heart, mind and spirit” – Bottle Babies motto.
An honest and very nicely written blog Wendy… you are not alone!
http://www.bottlebabies.org/
“Your baby needs YOU more than your milk.”
Yes! This couldn’t be more true! When fighting and struggling with my baby and my body to breast feed was interfering with me being able to bond with her, it was time to stop. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that until I had been desperately struggling for 2 1/2 months. Choosing to stop was the best decision in the world for my family. I actually started to like my baby. Don’t go as far as I did. Pumped milk and formula are incredible! Here are a few other things I’ve learned in the “feeding trenches”:
Happy Mom=Happy Baby
You relationship with your child should be about more than just food.
Babies absolutely thrive when bottle-fed.
You need to make the best decision not only for your baby, but for yourself and your entire family.
Stay away from the “sancti-mommy” blogs when you are feeling depressed.
Get as much positive help and support you can, don’t isolate yourself!
You are not a failure!
It gets better with time. Your relationship with your child will grow and develop as they get older and the hurt and guilt will fade.
Good luck to all the new moms out there, I hope you can find comfort from this article!
Thanks so much, Jenny! My intent was really to help other new moms feel less alone but it sure is nice for me to feel that too!
this is fantastic. i pumped for 6 months because i was so afraid of being a failure mom – and i was so miserable and so depressed. i wish someone, anyone (out of the 14 lactation consultants i had seen) would have told me any of the things you posted here. this is beautiful.
thank you.
Jessica – your’e very welcome. I really appreciate the support I got in “letting go”. Best of luck to you – you’re not a failure
Another for the ‘things you can say’ list: Twenty years from now, your child is not going to care how you fed him or her. Because they really won’t, you know.
Very true, Dr. Sarah. At age 13, most children would probably be quite proud of being bottle fed!
I remember only too well how heartbroken I was when I finally gave up trying to BF my first child at 4 months. Our issue was different, but I had so looked forward to nursing, and tried so hard, seen so many specialists, spent so many hours pumping and feeding and testing that it felt like bitter defeat to stop pumping and let it go, even though it was clear that she was thriving on formula as she never had on my milk. She was fine. It didn’t bother her in the least. She was healthy and happy and strong. I was the one who felt like a wreck.
It’s hard to see when you’re in the thick of it, but in the long run it’s so minor. Your baby will be just fine – strong, healthy, happy in your love, regardless of whether or not they breastfeed, or formula feed, starts solids at 4 months, or 6 months, or 1 year, or is cloth diapered or disposable diapered, etc, etc, etc. Parenting is just full of problems we didn’t anticipate, hurdles we don’t expect, challenges we have to learn how to manage, and yes, heartbreak, of course. And as mothers we should all be supporting each other, even though you wouldn’t believe that possible if you listen to the judgmental voices out there. No matter what, they will be there, those voices saying the wrong thing, looking down their noses, judging things that they don’t understand, crowing about victories they didn’t earn, or complaining about issues that seem petty compared to yours.
My best advice as a mom is to start ignoring those voices now. Not the people necessarily, but those voices. The criticisms. Learn to let them roll off you. They don’t know you or your baby, and they can’t tell you what’s best. YOU are the expert on your child and your experience. If they can help or hold, listen, but you don’t need to let them define your sense of yourself as a person or as a parent. Tune in only to those who support, help, show compassion and concern, patience and understanding. And in return, practice being that mom to other new moms who are likely feeling just as fragile and exhausted and defeated in some way as you did. I think we all have. Parenting is HARD and it’s high time we accepted each other’s challenges and choices alike and stopped passing judgement. You’re doing just great, Mama. You’re doing just great!
Thanks, Leah. It is hard work! I appreciate your thoughtful comment.