I Felt Ashamed To Supplement With Formula

But then I realized….

That no one could make me feel a certain way without my permission.

I was so confident my third baby would be exclusively breastfed; I mean, I nursed 2 other babies until they were toddlers.

I fought so hard to have him only receive breastmilk while in the NICU; I pumped around the clock for 5 months - how was utilizing formula now my reality?

Formula was something I didn't judge other moms for doing but I never thought "I" would personally do as a "natural" mom.

Yet now my supply and mental health was suffering to try to keep up.

What I wasn't prepared for?

How hard bringing home a NICU baby after 5 months would be. When my reality and trauma of the previous 5 months came crashing in - my supply came crashing down.

I was now not only mom, but doctor, nurse, OT, PT, Speech/feeding therapy, medicine giver for my baby - while still trying to be mom for my big kids, too.

"Its okay" - I thought, "I have a freezer full of pumped milk for this exact thing."

And then my baby refused my frozen milk due to high lipase - no matter how many "tricks" I used to hide the taste, he knew and rejected it.

I hunted for donor milk, only to realize how incredibly hard it is to find donor milk from a trusted source and how many people will ghost you... and your baby may also still reject donor milk.

"It’s okay" - I thought again "I will just make my own formula."

That was short lived once I realized that showing up to a hospital with "homemade" formula next time he is admitted wouldn't exactly go over.

And honestly, it was more than I was able to handle.

When I stopped pumping, the only one making me feel guilty was me.

The pressures and beliefs I held about breastfeeding were deeply engrained, intertwined with my identity as a mom.

I believed so strongly it is the best and only way, that I felt like a failure when it didn't work out the way I envisioned.

When l opened up to what was going on here on IG, I was met with so many DMs telling me to "latch him instead”, "get him off the bottle and on breast", "get a new IBCLC" or "have him checked for ties" and while I knew they were coming from a well meaning spot; I was finding myself hurting to read them.

They didn't know how hard we fought with aversions and sensory issues just to have him take 10ml in a bottle and work up from there. They didn't know how hard keeping weight on a medically fragile kiddo was in general. They didn't see how hard we worked on him to latch a bottle at all. But they didn't need to. This was my story with my son.

In reality, I knew breastfeeding was nutritionally best - but situationally, it wasn't going to happen for us and it was going to be okay. My worth as a mother is not based upon my ability to make breastmilk. I was humbled, to say the least - again realizing that breastfeeding was not as black and white as I imagined.

I was so afraid of being judged by my friends that EBF, are lactation consultants, etc. - that I wasn't allowing myself to celebrate how far my son had come throughout this journey:

The fact he even takes a bottle after ECMO, 3 months of intubation and 5 months of being tube fed.

I want you to know, if no one else has told you, I am proud of you and it's going to be okay with whatever your unique situation is and what you do or don't.

When our reality doesn't match our expectations, it can be hard-especially around something as emotionally-charged as feeding. Postpartum is already such a vulnerable time for moms, and when we start to feel like failures too early on it can be hard to recover from. It becomes a perfect storm for shame and guilt.

My situation is not yours, but I share this to perhaps normalize one (of the many) reason(s) why a mom may supplement with formula. It may sound "dramatic" as one of my followers said when I used my personal lived experience as an example - but the reality is, it's more common with medically fragile kiddo moms than I ever thought.

Again, this is just my personal lived experience and yours is probably very different than mine. It's okay.

Like so many things I have been humbled over - it's not as black and white as many of us in the holistic community view. If you are wondering if there are any better options when it comes to formula, you can read about some options here.