A human buffet

I had to take a hiatus from my maternity leave when I found out August is National Breastfeeding Month, a time to promote and support breastfeeding.

At seven weeks postpartum, the baby and I are finally in a rhythm when it comes to breastfeeding, but it’s certainly not easy.

I want to start by saying supporting and celebrating breastfeeding should in no way villainize or diminish those who can’t or choose not to breastfeed. KFF reports that by three months old, more than half of babies receive formula either exclusively or as a supplement. This is just my experience.

Your milk doesn’t come in for a few days after birth. You start by producing colostrum in small amounts. This was challenging for us because she was wanting more volume than I was providing. For the first few days, we supplemented formula to keep her satisfied.

Once my milk came in, I was quickly overwhelmed. While it was exciting to see my pump fill with milk, the baby and I still hadn’t hit our stride with breastfeeding.

We were timing every session, recording how long she drank on each side. It’s anxiety-inducing to not know exactly how much she is drinking.

She started to really enjoy bottles, especially a cold one right out of the fridge. She was less frustrated and we knew exactly how much she was getting. It also took a lot less time.

When people asked how breastfeeding was going, I responded that we were mostly pumping and she was drinking from a bottle. She only nursed about once a day. I was shocked by the response. So many people made me feel like this wasn’t best for the baby. I was always encouraged to “keep trying.” I know it came from a good place, but at the time, pumping was what worked best for us.

As an overproducer, the baby couldn’t even empty one side. I would need to follow the nursing with a full pumping session. This meant 20-plus minutes of nursing followed by 20-plus minutes of pumping.

At about five weeks, we began to hit our stride with nursing. I still need to pump several times a day, but now I breastfeed throughout the day. If I put her on my lower-producing side and put a pump on the other side, we can be done in about 15 minutes.

Even now that we are on a good page with pumping and breastfeeding, there’s so much that goes into being a human buffet for another person.

For starters, breast milk everywhere. I get out of the shower and when I go to dry my hair, milk starts dripping out onto my feet. When the baby lets go mid-nursing, milk sprays everywhere. When I take my pumps off, milk drips on my hands. Milk everywhere.

I don’t like having to wear a bra all the time, so I’ve started to embrace that sometimes I’m going to leak through a shirt while I sleep.

Fortunately, I began to identify when my milk is letting down. As someone with a lot of milk, it’s a pretty painful letdown. It feels like someone is taking a vice grip to the top of the breast for about 10 seconds. If I’m not ready to have milk come out, I’m squeezing my chest to keep it in. I’m sure everyone will see me do that on the sidelines of a football game or in the bleachers of a volleyball match.

There’s also the matter of the milk itself. I have more than 500 ounces in the freezer at this point, and even though we already had a chest freezer, we had to buy a second one just for milk.

I went through several methods for milk storage, bottle filling and freezing. I started by purchasing 16-ounce jars, filling one and labeling it by the day of the week and then freezing everything else I pumped that day. I would use that jar to fill bottles. This was just a lot of work, so I switched to a less cumbersome method.

Now we have a 64-ounce jug that stays in the fridge. Everything I pump for three days goes straight into the jug and I use that to pour bottles. On the fourth day, I freeze everything in the jug and start over again. It’s still a good bit of work, but it’s less than it was.

I still know I’m very fortunate to be able to breastfeed and make a large amount of milk. I had originally planned on donating the excess milk, but there are a lot of stipulations on what needs to be done to be able to donate. This isn’t a bad thing, but it might not fit our lifestyle. At this point, the plan is to stop pumping before a year and use the stash to keep her fed.

For those who don’t make enough milk, or make just enough, know it likely has nothing to do with anything you’re doing or not doing. I’m not doing any of the things people say you should do to make more milk. I just make a lot of milk. I didn’t do anything right to be this way; it just happened.

Whatever your experience, happy breastfeeding month!

Editor’s Note: I’ll be back from maternity leave on Sept. 8.