He is sitting on the floor of my bedroom happily grabbing for everything within reach and cramming his prizes into his mouth; the play kitchen food, his sisters discarded socks, the inserts for his diapers that were washed a few days ago but have not yet been assembled. His seriously precious chubby cheeks and double chin are slick with drool. At six-months old he is cutting his first tooth. He is thriving and happy.

His efforts to reach his sisters hairbrush result in a face plant onto the carpet. He lets out an angry yowl and I pick him up turning him into my body. He’s tired and his face hurts. I move him to my breast and he latches on deeply drinking in nutrition and comfort. His eyes are heavy and he throws his hand up over his face. Oh, good. He’s going to take a nap and I can get some of these chores done. The cat walks by and he’s wiggling to get down again so he can try and grab a tail. The nap will have to wait.

This scene has played out in some form over the last six-years as I’ve been nursing my kids. What is just normal life today was a few months ago a much different bath time scene. It was rushed and stressful and included pump equipment and special bottles. There was no moment to relax and take in the quiet moments of my girls playing happily in the tub and my little dude experiencing his world.

The stress and worry of those times still sneak in and nag at me sometimes. I have these fleeting questions flash in my brain,

“Is he okay? Is he growing? Does he look thinner?”

It takes a conscious effort to shove them away. Get out of here. You don’t belong here anymore.

I hand my boy an orange silicone water bottle brush that he is obsessed with and turn back to the computer. Sneaking back into my thoughts, a little voice wonders if I should even be writing about this topic as if acknowledging that we made it will somehow set us up for it to go all wrong again. Shut up. I shove it away again.

My reasons for sharing this part of our breastfeeding journey are twofold.

The first is to help me process the first sixteen weeks of my son's life. There was so much happening that is seems like a huge blur now. For weeks I lived my life in three hour increments with everything clouded by stress. I want to process all of the feelings from that part of my journey that were trapped within the net of despair and anxiety and determination.

The second intention is to shed light on something many parents and IBCLCs alike have learned. Even though baby humans have evolved to grow best on species specific human milk that doesn’t mean that breastfeeding is easy. Even when things progress as expected there is a learning curve and when it doesn’t go the way it is supposed to go then it can be downright hard and the path bumpy and sometimes with detours and roadblocks. Sometimes, the map has to change. This journey has helped me to understand even more than I did before that we need to be honest about that. It’s not always rainbows and unicorns.

As advocates and supporters we mostly talk of the positives and benefits but we can teach all the positives while still discussing that sometimes it’s a challenging act. In fact, I think hearing the stories of the times that things don’t go to plan; the times when it is downright awful and hard is helpful. Hearing these experiences helps remove some of the isolation and despair that can be felt when its really hard. And it can be really, really hard. I want to let people know that struggles happen, sometimes things suck, and you’re not alone or at fault. Your story can have a hard start and still have a happy ending—one where the experience becomes joyful and fulfilling, whatever form that takes.

I hope after sharing this three part series on my journey with my son that I will be able to share stories from other parents and that those reading might find something useful in them.