Essay: My breastfeeding story: I’m tired of parents having to hide the many ways they feed their children

_{Nicole Grundmeier and her newborn daughter are pictured in January 2016. The baby is yawning and has a nursing blister on her upper lip, which can be a sign of a problematic latch.}

For years, I hid the fact that I was still breastfeeding.

As a young woman, I read so many brutal comments online from strangers who made quick judgments about women who shared their extended breastfeeding (also called full-term breastfeeding) journeys with the media.

The online commenters asserted a swath of beliefs: That these women were selfish, and that they were just breastfeeding “for themselves.” These women were clearly doing it for attention. They were perverts. Why didn’t they just put that in a cup? Why couldn’t the kid just go to the fridge and get something to drink? That kid is going to be scarred for life. What if the kid remembers it?

So I hid it. I hid the fact that my daughter did not fully stop breastfeeding until she was halfway through kindergarten.

Too many women I know feel they have to hide certain aspects about how they feed their children – whether they’re giving a newborn formula or breastfeeding a preschooler or visiting a food bank. This fear and shame often spills over into the workplace, where women might be hesitant to communicate their needs with supervisors and co-workers.

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action celebrated World Breastfeeding Week from Aug. 1-7, which was also celebrated as National WIC Breastfeeding Week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I figured August was the ideal time to finally share my breastfeeding story. But it’s not just a breastfeeding story – it’s a birth story, it’s a parenting story, it’s a work story. They are impossible to separate.

I’m telling you this (admittedly long and detailed) story with the hope that a kernel of it might help you or someone you know. I’m tired of seeing women have to hide the many ways they feed their children.

I assure you, this is not bragging. I do not want to pressure other parents into a similar journey. My goal is to help erase the stigma surrounding all the choices parents make in nourishing their children.

I’m a big believer that parents know what is the best fit for their families. Infant feeding choices are intensely personal and sometimes painful. I know parents who chose not to breastfeed because they experienced a postpartum mood disorder, because they are sexual abuse survivors, because they had a radical mastectomy during breast cancer, because they had insufficient breast tissue/a low milk supply, because their premature baby never learned to properly latch, because they adopted a child, because they didn’t feel comfortable nursing, because their work/job was not compatible with pumping, because they didn’t want to – and so many other reasons. All parents should be supported in their feeding journeys, whatever that journey looks like.

This was my choice and my journey.

My breastfeeding goals

I did not set out to breastfeed a child for six years. I would have cringed at that idea. Oh, hell no! My original goal was two years – during pregnancy, I learned that the World Health Organization recommends that new parents breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of a child’s life, and then breastfeed alongside other foods for a minimum of two years. That seemed an unimaginably long time to share my body. It would require me to alter my own medications for a long time. (Not all of them were compatible with pregnancy or with breastfeeding.)

I wasn’t sure I could breastfeed at all, let alone two years. But that was my goal. I contacted a lactation consultant while still pregnant. I was going to do this. I wanted to breastfeed to give my daughter the healthiest start possible. I had dealt with some significant health struggles as a child, as a teenager and as an adult – particularly, two autoimmune diseases. I was hopeful that breastfeeding could help my child be as healthy as possible and hopefully not develop the same autoimmune conditions.

An early work experience put me on the road to breastfeeding success. When I was 22, I was a copy desk intern at the Des Moines Register. One of my supervisors, Jill, had given birth to a daughter in December 2003. We worked unusual hours on the copy desk – a typical workday for us was 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Between putting out the state edition and our “gold” Central Iowa edition, we had a lunch break. Every day, dutifully, Jill’s husband brought their baby daughter to breastfeed in an empty office.

We loved having a baby in the office – Jill’s husband sometimes had trouble pulling the smiley infant away from one particularly baby-crazy copy editor. The baby was a big boost to morale. The war on terrorism dominated headlines, and we frequently edited lots of wire copy about death and destruction. The baby lightened the mood. It was the first time I ever truly thought about breastfeeding or realized that was something I definitely wanted to do someday. And I knew that I could do it as a working mother because I had seen Jill do it.

An easy pregnancy and a failed birth plan

I was also committed to a completely natural birth, because I believed a natural birth could help facilitate breastfeeding. I hired a doula and a team of Certified Nurse Midwives, also known as CNMs. I had an unlimited prenatal yoga pass. My husband and I took a Bradley method birth class. We did all the “right” things.

I was in labor for more than 36 hours and never dilated past 6 centimeters.

My daughter was born via cesarean section, angry and pink and wide-eyed. Seemingly all the medical students at Broadlawns Medical Center gathered around to see the true knot in her umbilical cord. Thankfully, she aced the Apgar test. Someone put her on my chest. She latched onto my nose while I was still on the operating table. This was a good sign.

My daughter went home from the hospital on Dec. 31, 2015 – she was our New Year’s baby, and I couldn’t believe I could love another human so much. My daughter became my “why.” After her birth, every decision I made going forward was with her health, happiness and well-being first in my mind. That has never changed. That is my approach to my life.

I felt that my body and I had failed her during birth. I would not fail her during breastfeeding.

I didn’t know that I’d get multiple invitations to give up in the first month of her life.

The first month: A shallow latch, a postpartum blood clot and RSV

I was working as a freelance journalist when my daughter was born. If I’d had a job that required me to be in an office, I’m certain my breastfeeding journey would have failed. Too many things went wrong that dark winter.

Although my daughter and I were a gold-medal team nursing on the right side, the left side was a disaster. She always had a shallow latch on that side. I soon developed a laceration on my left nipple. The pain when she nursed was excruciating. We worked with a lactation consultant and got hands-on help. I begged for a prescription for Dr. Jack Newman’s all-purpose nipple ointment, which I had read about during pregnancy and had to be made at a compounding pharmacy. The Hy-Vee pharmacy in Windsor Heights quickly prepared it, and the laceration healed. I thought we were past the worst.

During those first weeks postpartum, I frequently breastfed my daughter while sitting cross-legged – or, “criss-cross applesauce.” I didn’t know that all women are at an increased risk of blood clots during pregnancy and especially postpartum. The highest risk period for a blood clot is in the first weeks after childbirth, according to the National Blood Clot Alliance, which runs a campaign called “Stop the Clot, Spread the Word.” That risk increases even more if a woman gives birth via c-section. I now warn women against sitting cross-legged during pregnancy and postpartum.

I developed a pain that stretched from the back of my right ankle and up toward the back of my knee. I’m a former gymnastics coach who is familiar with injuries and anatomy. I was convinced I had somehow injured my Achilees tendon during the 36-plus hours of natural labor – I had swayed through a lot of it, holding on to the back of a rocking chair, because I absolutely could not sit down or rest comfortably. It must be my Achilles?

My husband was skeptical, but the pain was getting worse. We went to urgent care. It was early January 2016. The waiting room was packed with children who had barky, seal-like coughs. The three of us tried to huddle as far as we could from the coughing children.

Eventually, I had multiple ultrasounds performed on my right leg. I was called back for more imaging – something didn’t look quite right. But it was determined I did not, at that time, have a blood clot, also known as a deep-vein thrombosis.

By then, my daughter and I were both coughing. I was terrified my c-section incision was going to rip open every time I coughed. My daughter was diagnosed with RSV at the age of 2 weeks, which was terrifying. She was just under 7 pounds and looked so tiny. She was hospitalized at Blank Children’s Hospital for observation. She never needed oxygen or even a suction. A pediatrician there told us her case of RSV was likely mild because she received antibodies from me via breastfeeding. I felt reassured. But I also felt it was my fault both of us had gotten sick – after all, she had been taken to urgent care and exposed to the virus because of my leg.

Not long after my daughter was discharged from the hospital, my leg pain returned – worse than ever. I tried to walk off the pain – I went for long walks, alone, on icy sidewalks in January. (It was too cold outside for a newborn, so she stayed at home with my husband while I did laps around our neighborhood.) Surely it was just a pulled muscle? Some sort of weird overuse injury?

Nothing helped, and it was getting worse. When I put my foot on the floor, pain shot upward. It was worse than any pain I had experienced during labor. I finally called a “My Nurse” hotline. The woman I spoke to asked me a series of questions. She told me I needed to go to the ER immediately. I resisted. I told her I’d already had multiple ultrasounds on my leg – no DVT was detected. The nurse told me, calmly and firmly, that I needed to go to the ER. She probably saved my life.

I got yet another ultrasound on my right leg at Methodist West Hospital while my daughter slept in her carseat and my husband watched quietly. My daughter stirred and started crying. She was hungry. I sat up on the hospital bed, ready to breastfeed her. The woman performing the ultrasound ordered me to lie down and not sit up again.

“Why?” I watched her eyes. I knew it was bad. She told me that I had a blood clot, a deep vein thrombosis, stretching all the way from the back of my right ankle to my crotch. She was worried about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism, a condition where a blood clot moves to a person’s lungs. She told me not to move.

A pulmonary embolism is another condition that postpartum women are at an increased risk of – the condition made headlines when tennis superstar Serena Williams experienced one after the birth of her daughter in 2017 and her symptoms were minimized and not believed. I’ve never been a tennis fan. But because of her experience and advocacy related to blood clots, Williams is now one of my all-time favorite athletes and humans. Thankfully, I never developed a pulmonary embolism. 

My blood clot was so bad that my medical team considered doing surgery. But I’d just had major abdominal surgery three weeks before, so they decided it was too risky. I lay flat on my back. My husband held my daughter to my chest to nurse, since we couldn’t figure out a safe way for me to hold her alone. Someone gave me an injection of Lovenox, an anticoagulant medication. I would need to learn to give myself injections of Lovenox twice daily to the abdomen.

A nurse taught my husband and me how to administer the Lovenox injections using a fake piece of skin. It felt like a loopy dream. We were already so sleep-deprived because we had a newborn. I tried my best to remember every detail, repeating the nurse’s instructions to myself mentally, memorizing them. I gave myself all of the shots. I spent the first months of my daughter’s life with bruises scattered all over my abdomen.

I would also need an oral anticoagulant to treat the DVT that would be safe for my newborn. This is tricky, because it would be unethical to test such medications on lactating women. The knowledge we have is based on case studies. My team told me the safest oral anticoagulant for lactating women was Warfarin, an “old-school” medicine also known as Coumadin. It wasn’t as effective as newer medications such as Eliquis. But it would be safe for my nursing newborn. I spent the next few weeks trying to get the right dosage of Warfarin. I was warned to not shave my legs or armpits – if I cut myself, the bleeding might not stop. 

Soon after the ER trip, I met my new internal medicine doctor. He knew how important breastfeeding was to me, and he supported me in my journey. He never tried to pressure me into taking medication that would be incompatible with breastfeeding.

Unfortunately, I would meet other medical professionals who would encourage us to switch to formula since it would be “easier.” Having a support network of people who support your breastfeeding journey is absolutely imperative to success – sometimes that means friends and family. But I’m a big believer that you need at least one medical professional who supports you unconditionally.

Back to freelance work at home

I kept breastfeeding. I used the football hold almost exclusively with my daughter propped on a My Brest Friend nursing pillow. It was the most comfortable arrangement for both of us. I missed the 2016 Iowa caucuses because I was exhausted, in pain and did not want to risk my daughter picking up another virus. We were all at a breaking point. We couldn’t take another thing going wrong. I felt guilty when I saw photos and videos of other women caucusing with their children, a newborn nestled in a soft-sided carrier.

I was able to slowly start working again – at that time, in 2016, I was a freelance copy editor and writer. I figured out a perfect system that allowed me to breastfeed while editing. I propped regular pillows on each side of my body and attached the My Brest Friend nursing pillow. My daughter would latch, and I did all of my editing on an iPad. I often read the stories I was editing to her aloud. I like to think they helped build her brain. (At age 8, she is a prodigious writer and illustrator.)

I’m not sure what would have happened if, like most U.S. women, I had to return to work in an office. I’m fairly certain I would have quit my job on the first day back. But freelance work allowed me to stay close to my daughter. I could also work at any time of the day or night. I was still on a Register copy desk schedule, and my brain was the sharpest at night.

Because of all the blood thinners, I continued having vaginal bleeding, also called lochia, until 12 weeks postpartum. Many U.S. women return to work around six weeks postpartum – some even less. My husband ended up taking a total of two months off work to take care of us. Thankfully, his company had just introduced paid parental leave for fathers. I’m not sure if we would have survived without him being there for us.

My pregnancy had been so easy. I didn’t even have back pain! But everything went so wrong, so fast, during birth and for the first full month after the birth. Looking back, I’m amazed we survived that first month postpartum. Friends and family brought us meals via Meal Train. That helped. Nursing mothers require an extra 330 to 400 calories a day, according to the Mayo Clinic. I was weak, pale and so very tired. The best breastfeeding advice I received: Never give up on your hardest day. I have shared this advice with the gymnasts I coach. It’s also solid career advice. Never give up on your hardest day. Think it over. If you’re going to quit, quit on a good day.

I’m a big believer that, as humans, we have to go through excruciatingly difficult experiences to develop true empathy and understanding. My own postpartum experience changed the way I see other pregnant and postpartum parents. I’m now an advocate for substantial postpartum leave and flexible work arrangements – and also for creative, innovative ways to support families during this time. I’ve written about it and spoken about it.

Too many people roll their eyes about parental leave and assume wrongly that it is all about bonding and cuddles. Yes, that is part of it. But for many women, this time can be life-threatening. It should be treated as such. (Suicide is the No. 1 cause of death for postpartum women.)

Month 2: PURPLE crying and spitting up

Somewhere around age 4 weeks, my daughter started crying nonstop during the evenings and spitting up frequently. She was unsoothable. She did not meet the criteria for colic, but she was close. I read everything I could about the period of PURPLE crying and reminded myself that there would be an end. I often had baby spit-ups that looked like cottage cheese all over my chest and clothes. My family has never again produced so much laundry.

I second-guessed myself as a nursing mother. Would she have been less fussy on formula? Happier? Healthier? Was she in pain? Was she getting enough to eat? But she was gaining weight and height well. She was meeting all of her milestones. She had enough wet and dirty diapers. She was happy during the daytime.

My doubts as a breastfeeding mom were compounded by not seeing a lot of breastfeeding growing up. As a babysitter in the 1990s, all of the infants that I cared for were formula fed. Most new parents in the 1980s, when I was born, did not breastfeed. If they did, they ended their breastfeeding journeys when their infants turned 6 months of age or much earlier.

The women in my family had never heard the term “cluster feeding,” which is when a young baby nurses nonstop in the evening to prepare for sleep. Cluster feeding is also common during growth spurts. If you don’t know that cluster feeding is normal and healthy, you might assume that an infant wasn’t getting enough to eat.

A possible lip tie, an oversupply and milk donations

My daughter often made a clicking sound when nursing, which can be a sign of a poor latch. We had her evaluated by a lactation consultant for lip and tongue ties. The lactation consultant did not find any. However, years later, my daughter’s dentist told us that she did indeed have an upper lip tie, which was released by a laser in a simple in-office procedure. I wish I would have gotten a second opinion about ties when my daughter was an infant. 

I’m not sure if the upper lip tie made our breastfeeding journey harder in those early months. I also suspect my daughter might have had infant acid reflux. Whenever we would put her on her stomach for tummy time, she would quickly roll over to her back, as if saying, “Ha! You can put me there, but you can’t make me stay!” She also loved to be held facing forward, straight up and down, while a parent walked around the house. The spitting up continued for months.

Around 6 weeks of age, my daughter began sleeping through the night, kind of. She would cluster feed and cry in the evenings, fall asleep around 7 p.m., and wake up at the first hint of sunlight, happy and hungry.

I was able to truly sleep for the first time since her birth. But somehow, I ended up with an oversupply of breastmilk, which can create problems for the nursing parent and the infant. I started pumping, only very briefly in the morning, for comfort. I did not want to pump too much and make the oversupply worse.

During this transition – going from a newborn seemingly nursing around the clock to sleeping a solid seven hours – I would occasionally develop a blocked milk duct. Ugh. I couldn’t help thinking I had clots in my blood and now clots in my breast tissue. Blood and milk. My mind seemed to think of little else. Why was it so challenging? Blocked milk ducts can cause mastitis, an extremely painful bacterial infection that can be dangerous if left untreated. I had to unplug the ducts somehow.

Thankfully, I was a member of two local Facebook groups full of experienced, nursing parents – La Leche League of Central Iowa and API (Attachment Parenting International) of Central Iowa. There was endless advice and tips for how to unclog blocked ducts. I remember sending my husband to Campbell’s Nutrition for a gigantic jug of sunflower lecithin, which might prevent clogged ducts. I took hot showers and even tried massage guns. However, the only reliable method for unclogging plugged ducts that worked for me was dangle nursing. I never got mastitis. I wondered how the heck women did this before online groups that could answer questions well after midnight.

During this time, I donated extra breastmilk to a mother in my birth group whose daughter was born about two months premature. She came to my front steps and asked if she could give me a hug after I handed her the frozen bags. We embraced. Milk sharing like this remains highly controversial because the breastmilk is not screened or pasteurized. Trust and transparency are essential. I told the mother I was on two blood thinners and levothyroxine for my thyroid condition. She wasn’t worried.

Years later, our daughters ended up going to the same elementary school. Whenever I see the little girl today, I feel out-of-the-world happy.

6 months: It’s so much easier

I can’t remember precisely when it happened. But at some point around five or six months postpartum, breastfeeding became easy. I was no longer confined to just the football hold. I was no longer dealing with an oversupply. It had taken time, but everything evened out.

My daughter was rarely fussy in the evenings. She could sit up independently and was becoming more mobile, although she still despised being on her stomach for any length of time. She occasionally spit up, but it wasn’t as frequent. Her first non-breastmilk meal was roasted chicken, green beans and bell peppers between the ages of 6 and 7 months. It felt like such a huge milestone.

I nursed everywhere. At first, I was extremely self-conscious. I started off slowly: nursing in the back seat of a vehicle parked at Walgreens while my husband dashed inside seemed like a Herculean feat. As she aged, I nursed at Blank Park Zoo. I nursed on the moving tram at Living History Farms. I expected a few rude comments or glares, but that rarely happened. Most people were extremely supportive.

Ages 1 to 3: Other challenges, preschool

We celebrated her first birthday with no end of breastfeeding in sight. Then, so much faster, her second birthday came. My daughter seemed more attached to nursing than ever. She loved foods like blueberries, peanut butter and salmon. But breast milk was still her favorite.

I don’t recall ever receiving a negative comment about breastfeeding from a man. The comments were usually from other women. I had a friend tell me she would never nurse her child past age 1 because she wanted her child to be independent. When I would occasionally receive comments like this, I would simply say, “It works for us.”

As my daughter grew older, she nursed less frequently. As she aged, our nursing sessions were mostly mornings, afternoons and before bedtime.

At age 3.5 years, she started Montessori preschool at Des Moines Public Schools. She had met her teacher. She had seen the classroom and was particularly enchanted by a big red wooden barn with lots of farm animals and laminated words. On the first day of school, she saw the barn and took off sprinting. She didn’t even say goodbye to us. And I was worried she wouldn’t be independent because of nursing! She thrived in the classroom setting, attending preschool from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. 

Around this time, I felt like I had to start hiding the fact I was still breastfeeding. I didn’t want her to talk about it at school and be the oddball. I didn’t want people to think I was some sort of pervert or helicopter parent. But it was never an issue. There were plenty of other parents at the school who practiced full-term breastfeeding. 

We kept at it. At 4 years of age, she had never needed antibiotics. She’d never had a cavity. She didn’t show any signs of the health problems that plagued me as a child, as a teenager and as an adult.

I decided to let her self-wean. She was nursing less frequently now that she was in preschool.

I did wonder sometimes if I should push her toward weaning. In panicked moments, I worried she would never wean. What if she still wanted to do this at age 10? Maybe I should pick a cutoff age and enforce it? But that didn’t feel right.

COVID-19 pandemic

My daughter was 4 years old when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. I was doing more freelancing work than ever – I had planned to return to the workforce full time when she was in kindergarten. Those plans were derailed.

I had never been so thankful to “still” be breastfeeding. My husband and I received COVID-19 vaccinations as soon as they were available to the public. But the children’s vaccine was not approved until months later. There was promising evidence that antibodies for COVID-19 could pass from a vaccinated nursing mother to a nursing child. I wanted to give my daughter whatever protection I could.

During this time, we obviously didn’t see many people. I didn’t have to worry about hiding the fact we were still nursing. Her fifth birthday passed during the pandemic. She was going into kindergarten. And she was still breastfeeding.

Kindergarten and the end of our nursing journey

By the time my daughter was in kindergarten, she was only nursing before bedtime. My husband and my best friend knew that I was still nursing her. But I had long stopped mentioning it to other people. I was too afraid they would assume the worst about me – that I was too attached, that I was a pervert, that I was a hypochondriac, that I was selfish, that I was “doing it for me.”

My daughter’s birthday is between Christmas and New Year’s. In 2021, she was busy with nonstop holiday and birthday celebrations. A day went by with no nursing whatsoever. Then two days went by. Right after her sixth birthday, she was done.

There was no hormonal crash after ending nursing suddenly, no pain, no clogged ducts, no effort.

I thought I might mourn our nursing journey coming to an end. I mostly felt relieved. And proud.

I have a friend, Leah, whose mother was diagnosed with cancer when she was in the sixth grade and died too young. Leah’s mom nursed her until she was 3 years old. Leah has a couple memories of breastfeeding. She doesn’t remember much – just that she felt warm and safe when nursing.

I hope that is what my daughter feels when she remembers our breastfeeding journey.

I will always be her warm, safe space.