I have no doubt I would not have been able to breastfeed my first daughter past the first few weeks without Irene, my lactation consultant. Nursing, and feeling like you’re failing at it, can be a really vulnerable experience. It’s one of your first tests of parenthood to provide for your baby in a way only you can. Irene understood how fragile I was feeling and gave me the encouragement I needed. It wasn’t just her expertise on what was going on and what I should do, but it was that she believed in me and was constantly positive.
I first met Irene at Yale New Haven Hospital, where I delivered my baby three and a half weeks earlier than expected. She checked in on me the day after my labor, when I was surprisingly feeling great. I’d had a physically difficult pregnancy and having my body back felt incredible. Irene said everything looked OK, and I thought I’d never see her again, one of many faces passing through the temporary hospital room.
Everything was not OK, as it turned out. My baby increasingly had trouble latching and I ended up using a nipple shield. Then someone (I can’t even remember which medical professional it was—there were so many that first week) diagnosed her with a lip tie and tongue tie, which we had clipped. It was the beginning of an escalating domino effect of interventions.
Two weeks postpartum I had blinding belly pain that sent me back to the hospital for a painful transvaginal ultrasound. A uterine infection meant I had a choice: 24 hours of IV antibiotics in the hospital or two weeks of antibiotics in pill form at home. Mostly, this was a decision about how committed I was to breastfeeding: I could breastfeed while taking the pills, but with the IV I would have to pump and dump. I thought I would have a better chance of continuing breastfeeding with the pills, so I took that option, hoping that not giving up latching practice for a day would help us along.
Instead I developed thrush on my nipples from the antibiotics, which gave the baby thrush in her mouth. We passed it back and forth for weeks despite treatment, leading to excruciating pain with latches for me.
After a difficult pregnancy, I just wanted to rest, be pain-free, and not feel overwhelmed for once.
At this point, I was getting up every three hours or less to pump and then bottle-feed the baby what I had just pumped. Needless to say, between constantly waking and washing pump parts and bottles as part of that routine, I was barely catching any sleep. My baby wouldn’t latch at all at this point even though I was still trying.
The stress of it all led my supply to tank, and we had to try supplementing the bottles with formula. Unfortunately, my baby threw up any formula we tried. The pressure kept increasing—she needed my milk. This whole time, she was a tiny five pounds and our pediatrician wanted us to keep waking her every three hours to feed round the clock even if she was sleeping.
This was all within just three weeks. After a difficult pregnancy, I just wanted to rest, be pain-free, and not feel overwhelmed for once.
Enter Irene. After asking in a local Facebook group for IBCLC-certified lactation consultant recommendations, the clear answer from mom after mom was that Irene was the person to see. I sent her a Facebook message mentioning that we’d met at the hospital and that I could use some help privately. Our consultations started right away over Messenger, and she came by my apartment that weekend for a low one-time fee that included “any follow up.” That follow-up ended up being almost daily help—via text messages, phone calls, and several more house visits—for months on end (at no extra charge).
When I texted her that I only got a low amount of milk after a power pumping session, or that we spent time at the breast but that the baby didn’t latch, she replied that it was OK and not to worry about any expectations until after her due date. “Just cuddle time! Enjoy the snuggles!”
Irene was able to help me subvert expectations—a major part of what can make the breastfeeding process especially fraught. One bad latch didn’t mean they’d be bad forever. I could do this, eventually, if we continued to want to try.
One week later we were giving up bottles and letting the baby sleep for five-hour stretches. A few days later, we were back to bottles because of my nipple pain from the thrush infection. I told Irene it felt like we were going backward, and she told me it was just a bump in the road. Looking back at my texts now, they are full of notes from Irene reading “That’s great!!”, “That’s perfect!!”, “You’re a rockstar!!”, “She will get better,” and “Way to go!!” Those reassurances meant everything. Something about Irene’s excessive number of exclamation points made me feel like I really had a cheerleader.
One bad latch didn’t mean they’d be bad forever. I could do this, eventually, if we continued to want to try.
And it’s having this kind of positivity, from someone who knows and who’s seen it all, that can make such a difference in such a vulnerable period.
A couple weeks later I was once again in excruciating pain that turned out to be mastitis. Worse than the pain was that this meant I needed more antibiotics, which kicked off the thrush cycle again. By this point, I was also experiencing vasospasms that caused more pain on top of the burning caused by the thrush I had now had for about 11 weeks. Irene and I were in constant contact, and she would check in on me if she hadn’t heard from me for a couple of days.
All in all, my breastfeeding journey’s crisis mode lasted almost five months. After that, I was able to reach a point where it was much easier, pain-free, and even an enjoyable bonding experience. I lasted all the way until 15 months when my baby self-weaned, turning away on her own.
I never would have been able to achieve that without Irene. She is 100 percent the reason I made it through.
Surprisingly, I didn’t consider quitting that often (mostly because of baby’s formula aversion); I felt that I really needed to breastfeed, even at the expense of my own health. Irene and I never talked about that side of it, how it might have been better for me if I had just weaned and found another way to feed my baby—like full-time donor milk (which I did end up supplementing with) or a prescription formula—that didn’t leave me in tears so often.
Irene and I became good friends after my need for her professional help had passed. I was grateful to be able to support her through her own major life transition, and when my wife gave birth two years later she drove across state lines more than once to come offer free unconditional support for my wife’s attempts to breastfeed.
Looking back now, it is a huge accomplishment that I made it through something so difficult, and I’m grateful to Irene for granting me that opportunity. I was the one who put in the hours of effort, but Irene’s support of that effort is what made my success possible.
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