Breastfeeding as a mixed metaphor: feeding my child.

Posted for PAIL Bloggers' monthly theme, "feeding your child." Click here to find and read others' contributions to the discussion.

It had always been my plan to breastfeed, and throughout my pregnancy, seeing the changes to my breasts, I had great confidence that it would be a success ... from the left side. My left nipple transformed into a baby's dream, plump and pert and perfectly perpendicular. The right one, however, didn't. It was the ugly duckling of nipples: flat, lopsided, and not at all like something a baby would dream of, except in a nightmare.

Whether I was accurate in my assessment that the baby would have trouble on the right side or whether the consequence was psychosomatic, baby did have trouble on the right side. But I had lots of advice, all of it just a touch of the "press here for help" button away, during our standard four-day hospital stay.

All this "help," depending on the source, conflicted. Pump from that side and give it to baby with a syringe. Don't pump; baby needs to get used to the nipple. Use a tetrelle. Absolutely do not use a tetrelle. ("What's tetrelle in English?" an Irish midwife asked me when I used the French word in our English conversation. I didn't know; I'd only encountered one in French. I looked it up later. A nipple shield!) Et cetera.

In the end we took from all of the advice the approach we liked the best, which was to use a tetrelle in the beginning to better form the nipple and then slip it off once baby was receiving a good flow. And everything was okay; both baby and I were getting into a good rhythm. She was still sometimes fussy on the right side, but we were working through it.

Then, during the second week, we ran into another, different kind of problem at home. Since the beginning, baby has always been a super sleeper, which is amazing except for the fact that newborns are supposed to eat every few hours. "Wake the infant up if he's too sleepy to eat," say all the books. Well, when you've done everything suggested to the point of making baby cry in her sleep and she still doesn't wake up, then what?

On the day of this problem, it was all of a sudden extremely hot and baby had been sleeping ten hours. (Yes, I know.) We hadn't been able to wake her for a feed and were at this point very worried. We called the midwife who had been making home visits as part of the Swiss hospital-to-home transition program. She told us to pump and give a bottle because baby would be too weak to suck, and she cut down my concerns about nipple confusion by telling me it didn't exist.

She made another home visit the next day and glanced at my list of quantities produced during pumping sessions. "Not enough. You need to give that baby formula," she told me, asking no questions about how we desired to feed baby and offering no advice on building supply. When I feebly expressed that I wished to breastfeed, she cut me off. "Just be glad that formula is available to babies who need it."

And of course I am glad for that, but ... [redacted: scene of soul-crushing, dream-destroying devastation.]

After that, we immediately sought other counsel from the oh-so-talented-in-inducing-labor acupuncturist, who is also a midwife. This was not an easy thing to do after being made to feel by the "expert" that we – or, more particularly, I, as the holder of the breasts – was starving our baby. But this woman was encouraging. She proposed a variety of galactogogues – fennel tea, mung beans, barley – and a pumping regime.

So, while still breastfeeding baby, I began to pump ... and pump ... and pump. Some days I could produce from between a half and a full liter of milk in excess of what baby took herself. And surprisingly, it was the right side that was the biggest achiever, consistently producing at least a third to a half more than I could pump from the left. My record from that erstwhile ugly duckling is astounding: eleven ounces in one blow.

While at least I knew that baby had enough to eat, this over-supply posed its own problems: painfully engorged and leaking breasts, a quick letdown that choked baby, and difficulty nursing in public due to the resulting fussiness.

I've since taken steps to diminish the supply. For a while, what was produced in excess had to be thrown away, which is sickening, but we didn't have the space to store it and the nearest milk donation center is too far away. We've since bought a new mini-freezer and it's already well on its way to being full, despite the diminution in supply and reduced pumping.

And here we are, past these initial bumps, now two and half months into what will hopefully be a long and enjoyable breastfeeding relationship. My body's immediate over-supply leads me now to doubt that there ever was a supply problem to begin with, especially when considering the "evidence" upon which the midwife based her judgment, and I am so glad that we looked beyond her curt and uncaring response to our situation. I am so glad, too, that we managed to sort through all the conflicting advice offered about the right nipple in order to find the best solution to encourage baby on that side.

My advice to others, based on this? If breastfeeding is important to you, and you run into difficulty, seek help and advice, but know that each opinion you receive will likely differ from others. Sort through what you hear to find the best solution for you. If a piece of advice doesn't feel right, then perhaps it's not the best advice for you. If the person giving the advice, no matter how expert he or she is in the subject matter, isn't even in agreement with you about your own goals for feeding your own baby, then find somebody else who will support you in reaching these goals.

And be nice to that ugly duckling. It just may grow up to be the goose that lays the golden egg.