The Day I Broke Up With My Lactation Consultant

I just went back to work two days ago and I think I broke up with my lactation consultant. More accurately, I think I got dumped over pumping. I just joined the elite and ever growing group of mommies who turned to their lactation support for, well, support, and felt judged, bullied, insulted, and overall, unsupported. And it totally feels just like a high school break-up, complete with tearful bouts of remembering the good times, the hurt of words that were exchanged in the end, that empty feeling of imagining life without her--only now I have a husband who is sitting up with me in the middle of that first emotional night and encouraging me to remember the good times and focus on the ways in which our relationship was so positive, rather than the ugly ending. Ok, not such a perfect analogy after all! Nonetheless, I find such great comfort in repeating the same mantra today that I so often repeated after those turbulent teenage unrequited love stories: it hurts a lot right now, but that pain will soften over time and it won't hurt forever.

The truth of the matter is that my husband is right. I should focus on the good times. After I gave birth to my son, I felt hugely empowered and supported by this lactation consultant. I really even put her on a pedestal (which always leaves such vast room to fall)--stating excitedly to anyone who would listen that the greatest benefit of laboring and delivering at the hospital I did was that you came home not only with your baby but with access to this amazing lactation consultant for life. The issue that came up is not entirely so important--everyone is human, lactation consultants included. When you are really great at something, it can be hard to imagine anyone else being able to do your job and threatening to believe that someone else is. Inadvertently I may have caused this person to feel that I was double dipping and crossing her authority when from my perspective I, like so many new mothers am just trying to utilize the resources I do have and do what is best for my child. I am not double dipping, I am proverbially just dipping the other end to maximize use of both my chip and my dip. And my chip could have many ends, you know, chips come in all shapes and sizes. This adorable chubby little baby on my lap did not come with an owner's manual. The one key phrase I took such comfort in hearing from my former lactation specialist was that there were a million right ways to feed and care for a baby; the most important thing was that he is loved and he had no shortage of that.

Knowing that there are a million right ways to care for, raise and parent my son is both empowering and intimidating. In that blank canvas kind of way. And when you hear that it takes a village to raise a child, you just want to utilize that whole village to the best of your ability. In the weeks preceding my return to work I had, thank G-d, major success with breastfeeding and also major struggles with pumping enough to supply my son with bottles when I would return to work. I brought up the issue with my lactation consultant and sought the advice and experience of friends. I was assured by the lactation consultant that things would be ok and it would get better, even provided with some suggestions. Some of them were helpful, others not as much. I took comfort in her telling me that although I feared "the worst"--not being able to breastfeed my son anymore--I was miles away from that point. There were a million steps between here and there and we would cross them as they came up. Friends and other mothers offered suggestions of things that worked for them and empathy for the challenge of the situation. Pumping with a newborn baby in the house who wants you right then no matter when right then is, is very hard. When I met with my son's new pediatrician where we moved, I was actually relieved when he and his nurse provided me with information on how to supplement with formula in these first weeks until I could build up a supply. It felt good to know that my situation was a common one and that this solution was not necessarily permanent but was perfectly safe and acceptable.

Now I did not need to worry about my son starving while I was at work and could focus on the multitude of other worries a working mom has when making this transition. The ambivalence is not about whether I want to work or not--I am comfortably settled in my desire to return to teaching part time while being able to devote my afternoons and evenings to my baby boy. I feel supported in my workplace, supported in my family and supported in my community. I don't know how many mothers can say that--whether they are working-out-of-the-house moms or working-at-home moms. My husband and I even sat down with a wonderfully supportive postpartum doula to help iron out and air some of those other myriad worries. I walked to work on my first day with a genuine smile and feeling of confidence. My son was in good hands while I was gone--hands that are entirely focused on caring for him in that time and not also reaching high and low to complete household chores and other tasks. Returning home at the end of the day was a joyous reunion and a relief. Everything really was OK. I just needed to navigate my way through pumping while at work and when it came to those issues, my former lactation support specialist was always the person I called. So it caught me off guard when in talking she got stuck on the fact that I had spoken to my pediatrician about supplementing with formula and also to my postpartum doula about how to arrange a space and environment to pump at work. She seemed uneasy with my decision to use formula at this point (though I'm not sure what other choice I had) and expressed that she was used to working with the pediatricians where we used to live who "deferred to her unless what she said didn't work." She said as nicely as I think she could that having too many people help me would be "confusing" and that when it came to pumping the only advice she could give me was to "just do it."

The feelings of judgment and the blow to my confidence are not really external factors; I know they are just a heightened awareness of my own feelings of ambivalence and insecurity. The sadness that followed isn't really about losing her support; how supportive is it really to have to nurture someone's feelings of authority while trying to nurture your baby? They are also just displaced emotions and guilt about leaving my boy and actually feeling good about it. But that is where the most important point in this whole experience rises so clearly to the surface. It does take a village to raise a child and thank G-d, we have one. Both in our home and family, in our neighborhood, in our community and extended family and beyond. We have a village standing on the front-lines ready to wage battle when necessary, ready to celebrate victory when they can and ready to console and empathize when that is needed, too. The amount of support and love that my son has in his six short weeks of life is immeasurable. We are blessed beyond comparison. And if my abrasive desire to quell my wounded ego leads me to say that this village is also lucky to have rid itself of one idiot, then be it. I will carry with me the pearls of wisdom that were so helpful when I needed them: there are a million right ways to care for my baby and the most important thing is that he is loved. He has no shortage of that!