Natalie is a busy single mom who is in nursing school and living on a strict budget. Using her skills of saving money she runs the blog Lucky Duck Saves A Buck which shares lots of money saving tips for folks. Who doesn't like to save money??!? You can also find her on Facebook; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lucky-Duck-Saves-a-Buck/ She is a breastfeeding mother to her boy "Kitty" and she outlined their breastfeeding journey (thus far) for us. Enjoy! Thanks for sharing Natalie!
I swore my son’s first word would be boobs. Or somethinglike it. For all of his life, he has had my breasts nursing him, comforting himand to him, they are ‘his’. This is my story of how I became an accidentalbreast feeding, intactivist, cloth diapering, baby wearing mama. The signs of“crunchy” were all around me. It wasn’t until I started viewing things in adifferent way after the birth of my son that I saw I was this way all along. Itstarts with when my pug Zoey is in need of a diaper during her, erm, time ofthe year, I’ve always used a cloth diaper. It just seemed silly to me to wastea disposable product when a cloth one would last longer and be moreenvironmentally friendly. Fast forward to a cold fall day when I was grabbingsome clothes of the line when I heard this little ‘meeeeow’. I looked under theporch and found a small, wet, cold kitten. I brought her in the house andwarmed her as best I could. I was afraid the kitten would die, but my pug Zoeyknew just what to do. She moved me out of the way, snuggled up to the kittenand pushed the kitten towards her nipples. Over the next few days, my pug, whohad never had puppies was nowlactating for this kitten. She just knew this kitten needed milk. It was themost natural thing for her to do. I couldn’t believe she could just ‘do’ it.She carried on nursing this kitten into a 20 pound cat for the next 3 years. Ifinally had to wean the cat because my pug wouldn’t do it. She was losingweight and the cat was constantlynursing. So anywho, that story was just a story in my life and when I gotpregnant, these things came back to the surface and suddenly made sense in away that they hadn’t before.I remember so vividly the moment my son was born. I hadchosen not to find out the gender of my baby as I knew I would need thatsurprise and suspense to help get me through labor. I remember when he came outand how the intense pressure was over and the feeling of anticipation bloomedas I waited for someone to yell out the gender of my baby. My baby. He wasannounced, “A Boy, you have a boy” and he was placed on my chest. He turned tothe sound of my voice, reached out his little hand and wrapped it around myfinger. We stared at each other. My heart burst into countless pieces as I fellin love deeper and clearer than I ever had before. This was my baby. I madehim, I carried him, I birthed him, and now he was here. I held him like thisfor about 30 minutes while they put me back together after his fast, less than5 hour labor. He started to fuss a little bit and I instinctively put him tothe breast. I wasn’t sure when I was first pregnant if I would breast feed. Iknew I would pump for him, but the thought of letting something nurse from mybody was odd to me. I felt like my breasts were these sexual objects and thatafter loaning my body to grow this baby for so long, that I would want my bodyback. After growing and then birthing a baby, I can tell you I felt muchdifferent about him then. It only seemed naturalto put him to the breast. After all, I had grown and nurtured him, now I wasgoing to nourish him.
So here my son and I are, almost 10 months later. We have made it through ourchallenges. Luckily for me, he is a boob fanatic, has a great latch and lovesto nurse. Some of the challenges that just about cost us our breast feedingrelationship have been the growth spurts. I had no idea how often a baby goes through a growth spurtand how it can take some time for your body to catch up. Without the knowledgeof my wonderful friends who run this blog, I would have fallen into the trapmost women do- “I don’t make enough milk” or “My milk dried up”. They told meto keep on nursing, keep on drinking water and be patient, because after all,my body was made to do this and given time, it would readjust to my son’sneeds. And sure enough it did. We faced the challenge of teeth…oh boy. Kittystarted getting teeth at 5 months and by 7 months he had 6 teeth. So we’ve beennursing for 5 months with teeth. It was tough at times but it’s totally do ableand it can be done pain free. Another challenge I will admit to is there havebeen times when I would just like to sleep. I’m a single mother, so it’s me, oncall 24/7. There isn’t anyone to help with the diaper changes, to feed duringthe night, or to give me time to myself. I am not complaining, this is all justsimply fact. In weak moments, I have thought, “Wouldn’t it just be easier togive him a bottle”…but every time, I’ve looked at my little baby and I’ve justknown that the right choice for us is to keep on nursing. So like most mothers, we go throughthose “normal” challenges. My biggest challenge is pumping when Kitty is withhis dad every other weekend, for the whole weekend. I do it with love because Iknow that feeding Kitty breast milk is what is best for him, and hey, the whole benefits for mama, like decreasedrisk of breast cancer and diabetes are not bad perks to enjoy. I have beenaccused multiple times of nursing as a way to “keep” his dad out of his life.That is definitely not the case. Nursing is not for the lazy. It takes a lot ofwork to keep a supply up, it takes rest, hydration, nutrition and it meansletting your baby have access to your body whenever and wherever they want it.If we were to play nursing card bingo-I have nursed in quite the assortment ofplaces-church, car, Target, restaurants, while eating, in the tub, the kitchenfloor and at a garage sale. To me it’s just natural.
So here my son and I are, almost 10 months later. We have made it through ourchallenges. Luckily for me, he is a boob fanatic, has a great latch and lovesto nurse. Some of the challenges that just about cost us our breast feedingrelationship have been the growth spurts. I had no idea how often a baby goes through a growth spurtand how it can take some time for your body to catch up. Without the knowledgeof my wonderful friends who run this blog, I would have fallen into the trapmost women do- “I don’t make enough milk” or “My milk dried up”. They told meto keep on nursing, keep on drinking water and be patient, because after all,my body was made to do this and given time, it would readjust to my son’sneeds. And sure enough it did. We faced the challenge of teeth…oh boy. Kittystarted getting teeth at 5 months and by 7 months he had 6 teeth. So we’ve beennursing for 5 months with teeth. It was tough at times but it’s totally do ableand it can be done pain free. Another challenge I will admit to is there havebeen times when I would just like to sleep. I’m a single mother, so it’s me, oncall 24/7. There isn’t anyone to help with the diaper changes, to feed duringthe night, or to give me time to myself. I am not complaining, this is all justsimply fact. In weak moments, I have thought, “Wouldn’t it just be easier togive him a bottle”…but every time, I’ve looked at my little baby and I’ve justknown that the right choice for us is to keep on nursing. So like most mothers, we go throughthose “normal” challenges. My biggest challenge is pumping when Kitty is withhis dad every other weekend, for the whole weekend. I do it with love because Iknow that feeding Kitty breast milk is what is best for him, and hey, the whole benefits for mama, like decreasedrisk of breast cancer and diabetes are not bad perks to enjoy. I have beenaccused multiple times of nursing as a way to “keep” his dad out of his life.That is definitely not the case. Nursing is not for the lazy. It takes a lot ofwork to keep a supply up, it takes rest, hydration, nutrition and it meansletting your baby have access to your body whenever and wherever they want it.If we were to play nursing card bingo-I have nursed in quite the assortment ofplaces-church, car, Target, restaurants, while eating, in the tub, the kitchenfloor and at a garage sale. To me it’s just natural. Unfortunately, many don’t think breast feeding is natural.The courts do not see it as a reason to keep mom and baby together. Familymembers and friends will question you. Pediatricians will tell you things like,“Most women can’t nurse past 3 months”…Wait…WHAAAAAA? Okay, I will fill in thegaps in the story. Like I stated, my family has been rather unsupportive ofnursing, saying that I do it only to keep Kitty from his dad. Simply not true.The health benefits alone are amazing. I cured my strep throat with some breastmilk. Kitty has yet to be sick. I’ve been getting questioned on when I’m goingto stop breast feeding as he is “almost a year” and “doesn’t need to be nursed”any longer. I guess at day 364 of life a baby still needs breast milk and byday 366 breast milk has lost all nutrition value and is poison. Okay, sarcasm,but the point is, Kitty will still be a babyat a year. He won’t be walking, he won’t really be talking. He will still bedependent on me to take care of him. If I’ve nursed him this long, what’sanother 6 months, year or 3? I firmly believe he will wean when he’s ready.
Which brings me to my last story. When I brought Kitty intothe doctor for his 9 month visit, his Dr. asked if I was still breast feeding. To get what she really said, insert questionand distain over the word ‘still’. As if,why-would-you-still-do-that-what’s-wrong-with-you. I said Yes.? (As in, Yes.Why would you even ask?). She told me that most women just simply cannot breast feed past 3 months becausetheir milk dries up and she was simply astounded that we were still breastfeeding. She also tried to tell me the cloth diapers were bad for hisskin-which by the way, is perfect and blemish free…and that the cloth will onlymake it more likely for him to get a UTI, which she believes he will be moreprone to anyways because he isn’t circumcised. These are things that are simplynot true. I’m not here to tell you how to diaper your child. I’m just trying toillustrate how bad advice gets passed around and somewhere gets turned intofact. If you don’t know more about the topic, you can be easily persuaded intosomething else. I looked at the Dr. and did the “Fish”- open and shut my mouthas I try to figure out what to say. I finally came up with, “breast feeding at9 months or 9 years is not without work. You have to drink a lot of fluids, eatwell and sleep well. You have to be willing to nurse on demand. You have to becommitted to it, but it’s not impossible.” She followed it up with, “We’ll seeyou at his 1 year mark. We’ll discuss weaning then as he won’t need to nurseanymore.” Riiiiiight. I’ll just be better prepared next time to defend thenormal, natural act of breast feeding with logic and fact.
The decisions I made to parent Kitty were well researched,but more importantly, based on instinct. Just like my pug Zoey instinctuallyknew to nurse that tiny kitten, I just knew to nurse my baby. And here we are,10 months later, happily nursing away. I actually dread the day he no longerwants to nurse. But the memories I had stored are numerous and precious…anduntil then, I relish smelling his sweet milky breath and know I am doing what’sbest for my son.
