Oh MR - great idea! I have tears just reading your post and looking back to where Isabelle and came from, until today. So here goes me!

Isabelle fed beautifully (or seemed to) from day dot, even though my milk was slow in coming in we topped her up once at home before it came in. For a few weeks things seemed to be ok, feeding was a bit painful, but after a bit of time went on I realised it really shouldn't be so painful. One side in particular was agony and every feed was preceeded by tears from me, and literally toe-curling pain throughout. She fed from one side only each feed so every second feed was dreaded! I was seen by the MCHN who gave me a few suggestions for lifting up my booby with a towel, holding it and shaping the nipple into her mouth. A few weeks later, still in pain, so we saw a LC at the hospital who thought it might be thrush, so we treated that. A few weeks later another LC at the CH centre- still in pain, in the meantime we tried nipple shields and expressing which both didn't really help. My DH was gorgeous the whole time, saying, look if you want to stop that's ok, but you REALLY want this, so we perservered!

After 4 mths of playing around with attachment, positions etc we finally had pain-free feeds It was fabulous! I still don't know what the difference was, it may just have been that she was bigger and older and able to take in more nipple!

So from 4mths onwards we had lovely feeds, no pain, in lots of public places, including a packed tram, restaurants, parks, markets and shopping centres ( change rooms are smelly! it is much nicer to find a private cafe and enjoy a nice drink and chat at the same time!). I loved feeling that little head snuggled in to me and seeing her satisifed face after a feed. I now hold her in the same position when giving her a bottle and spend her whole feed kissing her forehead and stroking her hair.

Since becoming pregnant and working, we have now ended our breastfeeding journey but I have no regrets about any of it, I LOVED every minute of feeding my girl, even when I was crying through the feed and I can't wait to do it all over again in a few months time with our new precious baby!