Six days ago, I gave my baby formula. I now occupy that space in the great divide between breast-feeders and bottle-feeders, and it feels weird. But I know I’m doing right by my babe, and I’m still a crunchy mama, damn it!

Before Sami was born, I always thought I would breast-feed effortlessly. My breasts would be copious fountains of milk. I’d shoot huge gushers across the room and hit the ceiling with my bountiful streams. My baby would grow and thrive and develop rolls of fat on my milk alone. I had read books and taken classes, but nothing prepared me for the breastfeeding nightmare I’d go through for almost twelve weeks.

This is actually the second time I’ve given my baby formula. Both times, I believe it was medically indicated. When my son was five days old, he was jaundiced and had lost an unacceptable amount of weight. He was sleepy and wasn’t nursing well. My crunchier-than-crunchy midwife, my post-partum doula, and a La Leche League leader all agreed that it was the right thing to do. We weaned him off the formula after about five days, when the jaundice had gone away and he was on the road to gaining back his birth weight.

Sami was gaining acceptably well until he was about nine weeks old, around an average of one ounce/day. Then he slowed down for a week, only gaining 5 ounces, then the following week had only gained two and a half. I watched his slow weight gain with growing apprehension; my lactation consultant suggested we give it one more week to see if he’d make up the weight. After six days and only an additional half-ounce gained, I could not bear to wait another day. If he was a slow gainer, and happy, then I could have accepted the status quo. But Sami was crying hysterically after every feed. He woke up hungry multiple times in the night. He’d nurse until both breasts were drained and he’d still whimper and cry. The high, piercing cry of a hungry baby is like shoving a needle in a mother’s ear.

It’s not clear what caused a dip in my supply. We’d had myriad problems — I’d had mastitis three times and a staph infection in my right breast. He has a very slow, weak suck. He would nurse endlessly, hours on end, and still seem hungry. I began to eat oatmeal daily. I pumped as many times a day as I could stand. I drank teas, took scores of foul-tasting herb tinctures, ate copious amounts of lactogenic foods, tried visualization, even resorted to drugs– taking 90 mg/day of domperidone, a pharmaceutical known to aid in increasing milk volume. I think it has helped a bit, but is not a panacea. Maybe it is something hormonal with me? I am getting some bloodwork to try to figure out if it’s a thyroid issue. It would be nice to know if there was a physical reason why I am not making enough milk. I’d definitely feel less guilty, like less of a failure.

After well over a thousand dollars spent on lactation consultants, breast pump and scale rentals, herbs, and pharmaceuticals, I had to admit it. All my efforts to get my baby gaining weight on breastmilk alone had failed. This was no longer about me and my hatred of the evil formula companies. I had to get food in this baby. And I feel good about the way I am doing it. With the exception of an occasional bottle, I have been giving Sami my pumped milk and formula through a supplemental nursing system (SNS), a device that allows me to give him a supplement at the breast, via a bottle that hangs around my neck, and a tiny tube that I tape to my nipple. Mosy women report that this device is a royal pain in the ass, but I have not found it to be that bad, honestly. Sami has no problem with the tube, and drinks very well through it. It is annoying to have to clean the damn thing all the time, but worth it to me to keep my baby at the breast.

I had thought about getting donated milk, and even put an ad out on a local message board and got some responses from very sweet and generous women. But then I developed this paranoid fear that Sami could catch something from another woman’s milk, since I couldn’t bring myself to ask the women to get screened. I am sure they are all perfectly healthy, disease-free women, but I was too scared to give Sami their milk. I have heard of a recipe for an infant formula made of goat’s milk, and may pursue that eventually, but right now I am just too tired to make my own formula. I can barely cook a meal for Hani and me. I feel terrible for saying that, but it’s true…

So, Sami has gained almost a pound over the last week, and is developing some chubby cheeks. Temperamentally, he is like a different baby. He smiles ten times more often, sleeps well, and barely cries. And here all this time I thought I had a fussy baby! He may be borderline fussy, but I think mainly he was just hungry. I can’t quite express the levels of guilt and inadequacy that this fact brings up in me. When these feelings arise, it is an opportunity to practice mindfulness of emotions. I just try to watch the emotions as they come up, acknowledge that they’re there, have some compassion for myself, and do the next right thing for my child. Which, for now, is to give him formula.