{"id":2425,"date":"2014-09-26T19:22:41","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T19:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebadassbreastfeeder.com\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2015-01-27T22:51:32","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T22:51:32","slug":"how-the-mighty-have-fallen-ap-in-the-air-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebadassbreastfeeder.com\/?p=2425","title":{"rendered":"How the Mighty Have Fallen: AP in the Air Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Suzanne Adams<\/p>\n

Well, where do I start?\u00a0 I guess we can start at the beginning of being in the military.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t something I had ever thought I would do but I wanted something stable, something long-term.\u00a0 I had gone to college but didn\u2019t have a degree so my options of a decent job were limited.\u00a0 So I decided to join the Air Force and get some education and training.\u00a0 I chose a job that is very difficult to qualify for.\u00a0 I spent the first two years of my Air Force career in training and my first duty assignment was in South Korea.\u00a0 Unlike many overseas assignments, I was unable to bring my husband with me without applying for command sponsorship.\u00a0 He could have come and we could have paid out of pocket, but we have pets and he had a good job.\u00a0 Being an airman right out of tech school, we didn\u2019t think we were going to get approved so we had planned to spend that year apart.\u00a0 We figured we had already waited that long (4 years) to start a family, what\u2019s one more year?<\/p>\n

\"unnaethsetjsrtjmed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Luckily, I got approved a few months after I arrived.\u00a0 My husband joined me here on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 We were ecstatic and since we knew we were going to be here for a while, decided to start trying for a family.\u00a0 We tried twice.\u00a0 It worked!\u00a0 I made jokes about being pregnant and little did I know I actually was!\u00a0 Fast forward to September 16, 2013.\u00a0 I\u2019d had a relatively easy pregnancy.\u00a0 No morning sickness, no complications.\u00a0 The only thing that the doctors were ever concerned about was my weight (I gained about 50lbs) and that my blood pressure was always high.\u00a0 I went into labor on the 16th<\/sup> at around 5:30am.\u00a0 That was when I had my first contraction.\u00a0 I was admitted to the hospital around 2pm when my contractions were about 2 minutes apart.\u00a0 The doctor checked my cervix and I was 10cm dilated.\u00a0 He told me, \u201cGood news, you\u2019re ten cm dilated\u201d.\u00a0 I looked at him and asked what the bad news was and his answer was, \u201cYou\u2019re not getting an epidural\u201d.\u00a0 I was fine with that because I had wanted a drug-free birth.\u00a0 Besides, I was already 10cm dilated so the baby was practically about to fall out, right?\u00a0 Wrong.\u00a0 At 5:30pm, my son had only progressed from -1 station to 0 station.\u00a0 The doctor was able to feel that every time I pushed (I had an epidural about 2 hours in), the baby\u2019s head was hitting my pelvic bone.\u00a0 There was meconium in the water and his heart rate jumped up to almost 200.\u00a0 We discussed it and it was decided that a C-section was the way to go.\u00a0 I was devastated.\u00a0 I\u2019d had all these hopes and dreams about how labor and delivery was going to be.\u00a0 I was going to push and the baby was going to come out and I was going to hold him and we would start our breastfeeding journey and everything would be rainbows and butterflies and harp music.\u00a0 HA!\u00a0 That\u2019s about the furthest from what happened.\u00a0 I had to have a T-incision (bye-bye VBAC!!).\u00a0 My son had a bruise on his head from me pushing.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see him for almost 2 hours after he was delivered.\u00a0 I got wheeled into the room and the doctor says, \u201cOK, he\u2019s hungry, feed him!\u201d\u00a0 Because breastfeeding is easy, right?\u00a0 Especially after giving birth.\u00a0 I tried for at least an hour to get my son to latch.\u00a0 My bra size was a 36G.\u00a0 My boob was literally larger than his head (it still is!).\u00a0 I also apparently had flat nipples.\u00a0 I called nurse after nurse to help.\u00a0 My husband was trying to help.\u00a0 The lactation consultant was not in the country.\u00a0 After him screaming and my failed attempts at getting him to latch for two hours, I gave in and gave him formula.\u00a0 I have never cried so hard in my life (I\u2019m actually crying as I write this).\u00a0 Not only did I fail at giving birth, I failed at breastfeeding.\u00a0 What kind of woman was I?!\u00a0 These are the things that are supposed to come naturally to us.\u00a0 How was I going to raise this baby if I couldn\u2019t even bring him into the world or feed him properly??\u00a0 What no one told me is that all of this is HARD WORK.<\/p>\n

\"eturryu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I stayed in the hospital for 4 days and went home on a Thursday night.\u00a0 On the way home, I started texting a lactation consultant at our base (I gave birth at a different base than the one I was stationed at, about an hour away).\u00a0 She said to me, \u201cPlease let me come over tomorrow and help\u201d.\u00a0 I agreed and she came over the next day around lunchtime.\u00a0 After a few hours, we found that I needed to do either the football hold or the cross-cradle hold and that I was going to use a nipple shield to try to draw my nipple out.\u00a0 He\u2019d been using a bottle for a few days anyway so he was used to the silicone.\u00a0 She also \u201cdiagnosed\u201d him with the baby equivalent of PTSD.\u00a0 It had been a rough birth and a rough few days.\u00a0 When we were at the hospital, every time they took him, they did something to him.\u00a0 Whether it be an exam, bloodwork, whatever.\u00a0 Every time he woke up, he freaked out and would scream and flail because he was expecting someone to hurt him.\u00a0 His eyebrows were constantly furrowed and he always looked mad.\u00a0 Trying to calm him down was impossible.\u00a0 Trying to get him to latch during one of his freak-outs was also impossible.\u00a0 We eventually got a routine down.\u00a0 By routine, I mean I sat on the couch topless for a week and nursed him on demand.\u00a0 He eventually started to calm down.\u00a0 That\u2019s when my little angry baby started to disappear.\u00a0 He started to relax with me and my husband and I could see his already stubborn little personality start to form.<\/p>\n

\"aetrtu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had to go back to work at 6 weeks and that\u2019s when (in my eyes), the real test began.\u00a0 I had to start pumping.\u00a0 Oh, I hate pumping so much.\u00a0 It\u2019s time consuming, it\u2019s boring, it\u2019s more painful than breastfeeding.\u00a0 There are regulations that protect me and my right to pump.\u00a0 That being said, it took some explaining.\u00a0 Many of the people that I work with are young, single men with no children.\u00a0 I tried to be as subtle as I could: \u201cI\u2019ll be back in a little bit\u201d or \u201cI need to go take care of stuff\u201d.\u00a0 Without fail, they always asked what I was doing, where I was going, when I would be back.\u00a0 Explaining pumping became the highlight of my day.\u00a0 For whatever reason, they always got grossed out when I talked about it.\u00a0 After a month or so, people stopped asking questions.\u00a0 So I fell into the routine of pumping every few hours at work, bringing home the milk and nursing on demand when I was home.\u00a0 I tried a few times to wean him from the nipple shield but it never really worked out.\u00a0 Nipple confusion had long since set in.\u00a0 It was more important to me that he be able to take a bottle of pumped milk while I was working, so I never pushed the issue.\u00a0 He just turned one year old and we are still going strong.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t really like to nurse during the day, but that\u2019s understandable.\u00a0 It\u2019s him and daddy time during the day, while I am at work.\u00a0 My days off are almost like an inconvenience to him, lol.\u00a0 I disrupt their routine.\u00a0 Night time though\u2026 That\u2019s another story.\u00a0 Once it hits a certain time of day, he\u2019s allllllll momma\u2019s boy.\u00a0 Some people at work have asked when I plan to wean and my answer is always, \u201cWhen he\u2019s ready\u201d.\u00a0 When I was pregnant, I had all the ideas about how I was going to raise my baby.\u00a0 I had a friend who did attachment parenting, nursing on demand, bed sharing.\u00a0 I thought she was out of her mind.\u00a0 \u201cNo way is my baby going to sleep in bed with me.\u00a0 He\u2019s going to be in his own bed, in his own room.\u00a0 He\u2019s going to be on a sleep schedule and I\u2019m going to let him cry it out.\u00a0 He\u2019s going to have to learn one day.\u201d HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.\u00a0 Oh, how the mighty have fallen.\u00a0 I now do all of the above.\u00a0 The only thing that we never got into was baby wearing.\u00a0 He\u2019s been active from the beginning and likes to explore.\u00a0 I tried a few different carriers and he will only let me use them for short periods of time.\u00a0 Anyway, thanks for listening.\u00a0 Being in the military and a breastfeeding mom is such a challenge but I wouldn\u2019t change a bit of it.\u00a0 I always likened having a newborn to basic training: you get no sleep and when you are awake, someone is always yelling at you.
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