the milk factory
March 12, 2014
I get asked to share my breastfeeding journey. (You have no idea how weird it was to type that. Bahaha.) I thought that was quite a personal thing and it’s an area that freaks people out… I mean, pre-baby, I leave the room whenever people talk about breastfeeding. But seeing that moms love to share (am new to the club so I don’t really know how it works…), I’ll just kind of touch base on that very very lightly.
So I’m still breastfeeding Daniel at 8 months now, but not exclusively anymore.
I went back to work when Daniel was 1+ month old and I would pump twice a day in the office. Since my work requires me to be out of office a lot, I had to even pump in a public toilet once (it was clean, don’t worry)! I made sure no one was there and looked so suspicious looking around that if there were CCTVs outside the toilet, I’m pretty sure they’d think I was up to no good. I sat down and started pumping, and whenever I heard footsteps outside my cubicle, I flushed so that they wouldn’t hear the pump go bzzzz-bzzzzz. Felt like I was on a secret mission. Can you imagine if someone kicked the cubicle door open? Now that would be funny. Awkward… but funny.
I sent a picture of the milk bottle to Dean with a message, “You see what your son made me do in the middle of the meeting?!!”
It increasingly got harder to be able to pump twice a day and because I pumped less, my milk supply was decreasing. At one point, I was so stressed Daniel had no milk left to drink so I had no choice but to give him formula. It broke my heart when he drank formula for the first time, but I got over it pretty fast. Haha. Daniel started formula at 4 months if I can recall, but everytime I’m around, I will make sure I breastfeed.
Then, we started solids at 5 months. #impatientparents
Today, as usual after I come home from work, I would breastfeed him. I love that he now likes to put out his hand in the air for me to kiss it.. or sometimes I would rub my nose playfully with his hand and he would giggle while drinking. It’s such a nice bonding time that I look forward to breastfeeding these days. But today… today.. was a sad day.
He was drinking normally… I was cuddling him and telling him about my day while his hand pats my face playfully. He would just stare at me while I talk and I loved the Mommy time. Then, like a big boy, he decided “Ok I’m done.”. He pulled himself up, got up from my lap and started crawling to one of his toys, leaving me exposed and mouth-open in shock.
“Well!! Excuse me young man, how about a Thank you for feeding me, Mommy?!” I said out loud to the back of his head. He was now busy smacking his talking minion toy thingy, couldn’t care less about me.
THEY GROW UP SO FAST.
*wails*
=D cute!
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Assalamualaikum, Good morning, V!
Hye vy,
Thanks sebab share your bf journey. My God dont worry to share about bf. People sometime feel so embarrasing to share. I dont know y. U should be proud that u are able to bf your own child. Ramai mommy di luar sana ingin sgt nak bf but rezeki takda. Like susu xda even they tried so many things. Im proud to share my photo while bf. Hoping that other mom out there inspired to continue bf.
Love
can u please share your post natal slimming tips pulak nexttttt *winkk*
thankyou for finally sharing your story with us the rest of the world. we know just how uncomfortable it can be to talk about your breast and the milk that comes with it. some moms may be comfortable talking about it. some moms (including myself) finds it weird to talk about it as it is still considered a private matter. but that aside thankyou for sharing this. it broke my heart too when I had to eventually give formula to my girl, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it but I got over it knowing that it gives me that much needed 8 hours of sleep
tq for sharing vivy.. m one of those who do not mind sharing bout my bf journey, but refrain from sharing my milk photos, only send to my hubs. even shy if other staff saw me carrying my milk from surau to pantry. too personal. but journey is another thing. i understand how u feel about feeding our babies first time with formula too.. nvm wats important is they’re healthy and happy kan.. happy baby = happy mummy.. ^_^
don’t worry vivy the whole office, of different nationalities, knows when i will be pumping the minute i put on that nursing cover (from FV by the way hihihi)
that day they saw me drinking milk while pumping milk (how bizarre is that) and the whole department giggled. now they make fun of my milk wondering what flavour is it on that day … “oh chocolate milk” “oh nasi lemak milk” blah blah blah and i just show my ‘ya ya ya very funny- laugh laugh laugh- my daughter deserves the best’ look :p
tqsm for sharing.. btw no worries at least u still continue to BF untill now. me unfortunately suddenly been rejected by my son when he turn to 5 months. it was d saddened feeling.. ur still lucky
hi vivy.. really thank you for sharing.. as a paediatric doctor.. i got to talk a lot regarding bf to mums.. i was very confident talking about it pre-baby.. when i got to experienced it myself.. phewwww it was very difficult indeed!! screw me for being so over-the-board before. haha. it takes a lot of courage to shhhhh the ‘flies’ surrounding us during the first few weeks. but nonetheless this experience is really an eye opener and i became better when it comes to work in advising those mums. my son is 16 months now and im still fully breastfeeding. really proud of that. feels like u are really needed and if u are not there ur child would starve! when i get back from work my son would run to me and said mama milk! all that exhaustion from work just vanished in thin air. alhamdulillah.