Milk Envy

Breast milk is the BEST milk for babies. I read it everywhere.  Naturally, I decided to breastfeed my baby….

The time after my delivery is a blur. The baby was born. I held it against my bare chest and fed it. Not sure what happened after that. I probably slept. My husband tells me they took the baby away for some tests.

It began when I woke up. The baby is crying. I offered him my breasts but nothing comes out. I squeeze them, massage them, let the baby suck and stimulate them.  Despite all of this, not a drop of milk.

The nurses came to check on me and my breastfeeding every 2 hours. I appreciated it but I wasn’t able to sleep. They kept coming back to check on me.

My poor baby kept crying out of hunger. He was a big baby but soon lost more weight than babies are supposed to. He cried, cried and cried. I felt so bad and sad for not to being able to give him my milk.

Three days after giving birth and we’re still at the hospital because my milk hadn’t come in yet. The specialist offered us an electric breast pump and the nurses took the crying baby to their station to let me have a rest during day.  He was famous with the nurses for his crying. My husband took me for a walk around the hospital.  I felt even worse when I saw pictures of mothers breastfeeding their babies on the walls in the hallway. There was even one picture of a mom feeding two babies, one on each breast! The moms were all smiling, tender warm smiles and the babies looked so peaceful sucking with their eyes closed.  

The baby came back and I tried to breastfeed. Nothing. The baby cried out of course. I looked down at my hungry crying baby, tears started flowing instead of milk. I cried and cried. I was so sad, frustrated and exhausted. 

But when I cried out, my baby just stopped crying all a sudden and looked at me for a second. We looked each other. Then he went to sleep.

He understood that his mom was sad and didn’t want to see him crying, I guess. He let me feel better by stopping crying.

After this, the hospital finally let me give him formula. The baby didn’t have to cry from hunger again. He chugged the milk. He smiled. I felt so relieved and was able to sleep with him for a few hours.

We left the next morning, after 5 days at the hospital. My breasts finally started to produce milk. I realized that I was just too tired and needed a good rest.  All I wanted was the BEST for my baby. I couldn’t imagine feeding him anything other than breast milk.  I wish somebody at the hospital had let me know that it was okay to give him a little but of formula.  I’ll never forget the moment when my baby stopped crying and went to sleep.