When Breastfeeding Takes a Toll: 'That Ounce Determined Just How Much I Loved My Son'

Nicole Nessetti Davies had a toxic relationship with breastfeeding. No matter how badly the mom tried to exclusively feed her baby with breast milk, she had to finally accept that her plan was taking a detour. It was an excruciating experience—physically, mentally and emotionally—but once she came to terms with it, she finally realized she had nothing to be ashamed of.

“I’ve spent so many days next to my pump, hopelessly begging it to help me get just one more ounce. As if another ounce would somehow convince the world that I cared enough,” she writes on Facebook. “It was as if that ounce determined just how much I loved my son.”

The mom spent so much time sitting by her pump, willing her body to create more milk. “I was killing myself just to prove to myself that I could do it,” she writes.

Being a new parent is hard. There’s always someone waiting to tell you how you’re doing it all wrong, especially when it comes to how you feed baby. While we know about the many benefits of breast milk for babies, for some it’s simply not an option. There are a number of reasons why someone is feeding their baby formula, like this mom who’s a breast cancer survivor or Jana Kramer who struggled to express milk. Whatever the reason, no one has a right to judge.

For Nessetti Davies, accepting the inevitable weighed enough on her own shoulders, without the added shame from those around her.

“It broke my heart when I had to finally accept that [our] breastfeeding journey wasn’t going to look the way I had imagined,” she explains. “I’ve stopped counting the ounces and I just feel thankful that we still nurse and that he gets expressed breast milk as well.”

Because at the end of the day, fed is always best.

“No matter how your baby is fed—breast milk, formula, donor milk, a mixture of it all—in the end, it’s the love that goes into it all that truly matters,” she says. “Don’t count the ounces and don’t ever do anything that makes you feel unhappy.”

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