By Badass Meg
I never gave breastfeeding much thought. If you did you did and if you didn’t you didn’t. I was never the one to stare or praise or run and hide because I saw boob. I was an active duty Marine when I became pregnant with my first. I still hadn’t given it much thought when I went in for a check up and my OB asked me how I was feeding DS. My husband started explaining we hadn’t talked about it and I piped up with breastfeeding. Walking out of that appointment I asked my husband exactly how I was supposed to do that because it truly dawned on me afterwards I had no idea what I was doing; my family just didn’t do that.
Over the coming months I went to all the breastfeeding classes the base offered and thought I was prepared. Looking back now I wish I’d skipped them because they were full of nothing but bad advice and booby traps. When DS came everything seemed to be great. My milk came in with 25 hours of birth and I was super engorged. He had a great latch and was a champ, even the LC for the hospital said it. By week 4 of my 6 weeks of maternity leave something seemed off. He took both sides for 20 minutes each and fell asleep with a smile. He pooped and peeped all day long but still something felt off. I took him into the ped and discovered his was failure to thrive. He was a pound under birth weight. The ped sent me up to the LC but she wasn’t available to see me for a few days. I was sent home with formula and told to give him a bottle of it until I could pump some breast milk. Not knowing any better I had bought a Playtex double pump simply because it matched my bottles. By the time I went to work my son was refusing the breast even with the SNS (Supplemental Nursing System) the LC had given us and I couldn’t pump more than 10 oz in a day using the lactina the WIC office gave me.
The first place I was given to pump was the shower area of a bathroom because it was “separated” by a curtain. There was no office or conference room I was allowed to use despite that the military and the Marine Corps had policies stating I needed a space other than a bathroom. Finally a few weeks in I was given permission to use a old supply closet that I had to share with 7 other women. It was disgusting and we weren’t allowed to clean it but I had no real other option other than the bathroom again. About 5 months into my EPing for DS my unit finally gave us permission to us a barracks room across the road. It was a dream come true for all of us or at least we thought. More times than not when we went to get the key for the room we’d have to sit and listen to men and women talk about how we needed to knock that off because that just wasn’t what boobs were for and we were so gross and just using it to be lazy and get out of work.
I EP’d for 13 months until I finally dried up. In that time I was constantly put down and told to stop that nasty stuff. When I asked for permission to go and pump I was frequently made to wait 4-6 hours because something “had” to be done; mostly we sat around for no reason. I developed mastitis several times due to the waiting. Later I was diagnosed with IGT and insulin resistance which would help explain why I couldn’t produce enough. I took every pill, herb, food and drink under the sun that might possibly help. I sought help outside of the base and got a better pump, all of this was out of pocket because Tricare is not required to cover pumps or LCs even for active duty.
I knew having a family in the military would never be easy, but never in my life could I have ever imagined how horrible it would be. Some of the worst people were fathers and mothers themselves. I was just trying to give my son everything I could even if we had to supplement. Thankfully my contract ended and I just gave birth recently to my DD. We’re giving breastfeeding a try and I take every day I get with her as a true blessing even if supplementing is required at some point, because sometimes that just what breastfeeding looks like.
For more support and community for breastfeeding military moms visit Breastfeeding in Combat Boots.
