This is my ost from another thread that got removed - just coz it was in the wrong section (nothing offensive in it or anything, don't worry), so here it is.

When pregnant I was SO prepared to BF...joined the ABA, got books, support, researched pumps in case I went back to work, had everything sorted. This was really hard for me to do - to see my breasts as a food source - becuase sexual abuse as a child has taught me something very different, and I find it hard to even be naked in the shower.

Straight after Palmer was born I went into ICU for 4 days and didn't hold her until my last day there (and even then she felt like she was made of stone, I was weak and still had heaps of tubes in my arms, which made it awkward) - when I was able to sit up and move into normal postnatal ward. I hardly even saw her for those 4 days, as I was rather 'out of it' while in ICU.

As a result, Palmer was FF by the nurses during this time.

My first night in ICU, I had a night nurse who terrified me. She a walking stereotype - had no bra on, boobs down to her knees and proudly told me she was still BF her 6 year old and worked nights so she could go to school to feed him. She kept me awake the entire night, sitting by my bed, telling me that by FF my baby I was poisioning her, and she would quite literally die. Palmer was vommiting some mucous (which I learnt later is apparently not uncommon when a baby has a traumatic birth) and she told me that this was proof that the formula was killing her. This is no stretch...this is literally what she said to me.

The next morning, a senior doctor paid me an unexpected visit and apologised for the nurse's behaviour and said that it was way out of line. He was clearly ashamed and angry. At the time I told him it didn't matter, but she's ben stuck in my head ever since.

Once I was in postnatal, and during my 4 week stay at the MBU, I pumped like a cow in a milking station. Palmer was hard to feed on the bottle even, as she would often fall dead asleep to the point that even the MBU nurses would say "Go back to bed Amanda, we'll try to feed her for you" after watching me struggle with her feeding constantly. I never got a drop of milk from my breasts, and Palmer wasn't interested in the least. I started getting sweats and fevers at the MBU and they said that maybe my milk was finally coming in, but it turned out that I just had Pneumonia.

It WOULD be nice if BF was easy for everyone. Sometimes it's not even easy for other mammals - I've seen many a purebred dog struggle with feeding her pups, and needing human intervention. I AM envious of my friends who easily BF...they tak about the milky smell, the close bond with their baby, the joy for both them and child...

Maybe we should sometimes count our blessings that we have Formula as an option. 100 years ago, I would have bled to death having Palmer, and if she didn't have a wet nurse to go to, she would have died too. Formula feeding WAS NOT easy...lots of constipation problems and tummy pain involved for Palmer, going through different brands of formula and etc. It's not cheap either. I hated causing her tummy pain and hated seeing her not being able to poo...and later, when she went of cow's milk after she turned one, I hated seeing that like me, she cannot handle dairy, and had unstoppable runny, stinky poo and pain.

I understand that some people choose FF becuase it is the easy way out, but I personally know no one who has done so for this reason.