Challenger School

Beauty In Breastfeeding – Blessings Sometimes Come In Two’s

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Share Your Story in the Beauty in Breastfeeding Project

Each Monday, we’re sharing stories of the personal breastfeeding journeys of mothers throughout the State of Utah in cooperation with the Beauty in Breastfeeding Project. Read our earlier article to find out more about this initiative that celebrates breastfeeding mothers. To share your own story, visit www.beautyinbreastfeedingproject.com.

I had always badly wanted to have children, but by the age of 42, I was resigned to the impossibility. I hadn’t been married, and hadn’t found a worthy and willing partner. I was single and planned on staying that way. Then, out of the blue, I reconnected with a man I had met in my early twenties, and within six months, I was making plans to move from California to Utah to live with him.

Just before the move, we started to talk about maybe sort of kind of trying to have a baby, and then BAM: we found out I was pregnant—with twins. While we were surprised at the idea of two babies, I couldn’t claim to be truly shocked. My dad is a twin, and there are other twins in my family. I am also an older mom, and that makes twins more likely. What was a big surprise was that the girls turned out to be probably identical—which is neither hereditary, nor does it have anything to do with maternal age. In fact, it’s basically just a fluke, which felt like a gift from the universe—like I was being taken care of.

I remembered a trip I had made to the Andes in Peru several years before, when a shaman had told me I would eventually have two kids… but not for a while. At the time, I was skeptical of his story, but he turned out to be right. And we were very lucky with our girls, Phoebe and Eliza. I got pregnant quickly; they were healthy; I carried them to term; the birth went smoothly.

Breastfeeding turned out to be the one glitch. I knew that breastfeeding twins would be challenging, so I prepared myself. I read all the books, pored over the La Leche League recommendations, and was determined to breastfeed them both as much as possible. But since they were twins, they were small—in the 5s—and the nurses and pediatrician urged me to supplement with formula to get their weight up. I went through phases in their early weeks of trying to breastfeed them exclusively, but they never seemed to get enough. They would be incessantly hungry, one crying while the other nursed, switching back and forth for hours, always one hysterical.

I spent most of every day in the armchair in our nursery, begging my husband and my mother to bring me water and food. I held my pee; I didn’t brush my teeth or shower. I had two lactation consultants on speed dial, and I let everyone in the world see my boobs because I just did not care; I wanted so badly to stop using formula. And I tried everything to get my milk supply up: the fenugreek supplements, the Mother’s Milk tea, the oatmeal and dried cherries, the water and water and more water, the constant incessant pumping. I did the skin-to-skin and let them comfort-nurse whenever they expressed even the slightest inclination, 24 hours a day.

Finally, a particularly great lactation consultant named Rebecca gave me permission to stop trying so hard. These girls are big eaters, and I am not a big producer, for whatever reason. The good news is that they’ve almost doubled their weight in just eight weeks. I’m still breastfeeding—and I’m committed to sticking with it for their first year—but I am also at peace with using formula to supplement. And while the perfectionist in me still worries that I’m not doing enough to exclusively breastfeed them, the realist in me knows that these girls are always going to be taken care of, and that’s what matters.

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