The Princess and I

  Breastfeeding is hard work, and when I first became pregnant with The Princess nearly six years ago no one mentioned that to me. I had dreams of nursing my little one for her first year of life, and was eager to begin my journey in motherhood. I was a young mother, not even twenty years old when she was born. My relationship with my own mother was tattered due to difficulties in my past. My SO at the time was, well, far from supportive. He was not happy about me not working even for the first six weeks of her life, and would often make it clear my affection for our daughter was robbing him of affection.
  I was young and alone for most of the day as well as the night due to my SO working two jobs. The Princess would not rest at night, and instead she was constantly nursing. When she wasn't nursing she was screaming as if in pain. My first night home was horrible and exhausting. I could not understand why she wouldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time. My father came over the next morning to let me sleep and it was the best gift he could have given me at that moment. Once he left though it was back to struggling to get The Princess to sleep or at least stop crying. I began to doze off during the day when she napped instead of keeping our apartment spotless. This greatly irritated my SO and caused many arguments between us. He began to suggest I give her formula so I could get more stuff done. I didn't want to at first, but his persistence wore me down. We began to supplement and it seemed to help at first.
  The formula was a short lived answer to our problem. She began to throw up everything she ate, nearly immediately after she ate. I would frantically call her pediatrician's office trying to describe the projectile vomit that she was experiencing. At first family members and the nurse  all suggested it might be a milk allergy, so we gave her a different formula and cut back on the breastfeeding. I began to notice a lack of my milk supply and became saddened. I took this as a sign that I could no longer breastfeed her if we kept giving her formula as well. The new formula did not help her spit up problem at all. The pediatrician informed us it was quite possible that she had acid reflux so they switched her to a different formula. I was also told I could no longer breastfeed because she would not be able to keep it down. I had no one else to go to for advice so I trusted the doctor. The new formula eased her spit up issues, but not my personal doubts. To this day I wonder if maybe she could have been breastfed. Perhaps if I had been around more moms, had a support system, or a least one person who could help me I might have been able to succeed.
  So while I support breastfeeding as being best for babies, I understand that moms struggle. I have friends who have their milk dry up within a month, and I know others who experienced extreme depression while breastfeeding. Their depression caused them to have to stop in order to not hurt themselves or their babies. I also know there are so many other mothers out there that lack a support system. Young moms and even older moms alike need a support system through this journey. It is a difficult yet rewarding one and sometimes we need someone to offer friendly advice in order to succeed.