Opinion: Breastfeeding Isn't a Pass/Fail or Win/Lose

True story: I was on a game show once. The whole thing took about 20 minutes to film. My nerves were fried the entire time, and I was equal parts excited out of my mind and terrified. I made it to the final round as the winner and had 10 seconds to solve a puzzle. I solved the puzzle on the 11th second and the host, looking like he shared as much defeat as I did, then unveiled that the prize would have been one million dollars.

I kept my composure, smiled as the cameras rolled, but definitely went backstage and cried. Like... teenage ugly cry where you lock yourself in the bathroom from your mom and hate her. They asked me to come back out to film a goodbye and I just couldn’t. I felt embarrassed and confused and it was way too much in the moment. I was on food stamps at the time and we were struggling. That dangle of glory there at the end that fell out of my fingertips was heavy.

Being on that game show was a lot like when I started breastfeeding. Odd analogy, yes, but when it all happened there was something in that panicked moment that felt familiar: what it feels like to want something and lose it, when you feel failure while the world watches. It was that "oh no, here goes the rug again," sensation; a kind of helplessness when the perspective has shifted from participating in the process to being pulled out of agency in it.

Before I became a mother, there was so much in me that felt pulled to "get it right." I took the classes, hired a private birthing coach and was resolute in my readiness. I was like the contestant on that game show who spent months with my nose in crossword puzzles, training as if scrabble were an olympic event- except this time the stakes felt so much higher and the impacts felt so permanent. Carl was born, perfect and healthy and even though I was overwhelmed with the sheer unknowingness of it all, I felt optimistic and confident.

When I struggled with feeding and felt like I couldn't breastfeed my son the "right" way, it nearly destroyed my mental health as I kept chasing after it, wanting so much to “win” and exclusively breastfeed. I kept chasing after that 11th second, but it never came.

I stopped trying with Carl because I thought if I couldn’t exclusively breastfeed I had failed.

I didn’t finish taping the show because I thought if I’d lost a million dollars I’d failed. Neither were true.

Failing as a mother would have been refusing to give my son what he needed, and what I needed. I couldn’t keep breastfeeding Carl because I didn’t know how to do it without feeling inadequate and terrified. I couldn’t breastfeed until I could figure out how to unlearn the lies that defined what winning was. Winning isn’t always not losing, sometimes it’s just walking away with what you have and knowing it’s still something good.

After all, I did still win a trip to Jamaica 💁🏼‍♀️