Many years ago, while I was still a wee youngun’, I remember seeing a galpal’s mom breastfeeding her little brother and somehow, I ‘saw’ a little pipe like thing attached to her mom’s tummy. Now, this was an image I saw as a little girl of perhaps 5 or 6 years old. I never knew then that that was breastfeeding and no one told me. So the image of having a pipe sticking out of me to feed babies have always intrigued me coz I used to think, when will my pipe come out.

As I grew up, many friends got married, had kids and when I went to visit them, seeing them breastfeed was no biggie. They seemed normal and unashamed to pop one out and feed the open mouth. And it was then as well, that I thought, ‘O….that looks pretty easy enough,’ and thought that I could handle it with ease when the time came. But by then, I knew that I wasn’t ever going to grow any pipes anywhere on my body.

Today, I have a baby of my own AND I’m breastfeeding 99.9% of the time with the occasional formula feed when I have to rest a boob or if I’m out and about, and not home to feed Ella. And it is now that I realise that freastfeeding is no easy feat. I used to think it was a mere get baby, put baby to boob and voila, baby would feed. Needless to say I was dead wrong!

I never in my wildest imagination thought that there would be certain techniques and methods used to get the nipple into the baby’s mouth or how you need to tilt the head back a little so that baby doesn’t choke, or how you need to align baby for a chest-to-chest position and well, the list goes on! Sad to say, I’ve been having issues every now and then with Ella latching on. Some days we’re good, other days she just doesn’t latch on nicely that I pretty much get chomped on and Ella literally draws blood – jokes asides. Seriously.

But I think we’re both getting the hang of it and although sometimes I know she isn’t latched on properly, and I feel a little pain, I’m willing to risk. As long as I can take the pain and am not left nipple-less, I’m good. It may not be 100% right but as long as I know she’s getting her fill, I think we’ll be ok.

As at today @ 2w4d, she is 3.3kgs, measuring 51.5cm with a head circumference of 34.5cm. So she’s growing well.