Hearing, Trusting and Testifying through Impossible Breastfeeding

Never did I ever think I would write blog post after blog post about breastfeeding. And yet, here I am, 3 babies later still writing about it. This post is a bit different from my previous ones… I told God I would write it if He would heal Harper, and here we are. 🙂 My core struggle with breastfeeding Harper was around HEARING from the LORD – through sleep deprivation, anxiety, and overwhelming struggle – TRUSTING what I did hear and know of God in the face of such trouble – and now TESTIFYING, because the more attractive option is to forget and move on from difficulty, instead of remembering how God carried me through it.

Let me start with the struggle.

Before Harper was born, I prayed that she wouldn’t have tongue ties. My first two children had them and it had made breastfeeding very difficult, especially for my most recent son.

On November 5th, Harper was born. We had a great time of bonding and skin to skin right once she was born and she breastfed like a champ. In the hospital, I knew we had a shallow latch that needed to improve and I learned that she did in fact have a tongue and lip tie, just like her brother Graham. This was my worst-case scenario. Graham needed multiple surgeries to correct his ties and struggled with weight gain until he was 8 months old. It was the worst experience I have gone through in my motherhood journey so far.

So let me repeat, Harper had the same tongue ties as Graham. At two weeks old, we took her to the same pediatric dentist that Graham went to and had her ties lasered. We did all the exercises, we went to all the lactation consults, we did all the things and we did them 5 months earlier than we got to do with Graham. It seemed that despite a bumpy start, we were destined for breastfeeding success.

You might be reading up until this point and think–what’s the big deal? Why put so much effort into trying to make breastfeeding work when it’s been so very difficult? I will be the first to say that #fedisbest and with both Graham and Harper, if either one of them would have taken a bottle/possessed the ability to suck well, I would have switched to bottles a long time ago. We had the issue of Harper seeming to not be able to use a bottle, but also not gaining enough weight. To top it all off, her first 2 months of life were marked by illness in our house. The doctor told me the best I could do to keep her safe was to quarantine and to breastfeed. It felt imperative that we figure this out to get her the milk that she needed and to keep her safe.

Despite doing all of the things we were supposed to do in order to get Harper’s tongue tie released, and her oral skills working so she could suck milk effectively and regain weight, it just didn’t seem to be working. She would feed for a few minutes and break off crying. She wouldn’t want to eat with me when she was awake and seemed to possibly have a feeding aversion after the tongue tie surgery. She wouldn’t take a bottle, and wasn’t sleeping well because she wasn’t eating well.

Desperate to Hear

By mid-December, I was at a breaking point. I needed to hear from the LORD, but I was already so strung out, and overwhelmed by how fragile our breastfeeding relationship seemed. How do you hear from the LORD when you feel like that? Sobbing and pleading with God to do something, anything, I opened my Bible randomly and looked down at a verse hoping God might meet me just where I needed. Normally, this is not a practice I would condone (reading random verses out of context) but this was where I was at, and I know the power of God’s Word.  

The first verse I read was from Haggai 2:19, “Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit. ‘From this day on I will bless you.’”

Interesting. “From this day on, I will bless you.” So I prayed, ‘Lord, I know I just randomly pointed to a verse. If that was you speaking to me, would you do it again?’

I turned in my Bible randomly and landed in Luke. The first verse that my eyes landed on said, “Don’t be afraid, just believe and she will be healed.” (Luke 8:50)

I sobbed. God had heard me. He met me in my grief and distress. And He had told me a way forward. Don’t be afraid, just believe and she will be healed.

I was ready. I was ready for healing. And I thought since I had read the verse in Haggai that it meant that she would be healed ASAP. Like tomorrow would be nice.

So a week later when I still hadn’t seen much improvement, I was back to sobbing and questioning God’s voice, and whether I heard him at all. I was struggling to trust what I had heard from Him.

Struggling to Trust

After a particularly difficult feeding, I was crying out to God and complaining to Matt, and I felt like the story of the persistent widow before the unrighteous judge from Luke 18 came into my mind. Keep crying out to God for healing. Don’t stop. He is righteous and He hears you. The funny thing is that at that exact moment, the very same passage popped into Matt’s mind as well though he didn’t say so at the time. This was what persisting in trust looked like for us–God was speaking to both of us, reminding us of His Word and inviting us to keep praying.

Over the next few days, I wrestled with God’s timing. I felt like He said from then on He would bless me, I was ready and waiting for it, but why hadn’t it happened yet? I struggled with the fear that I was warned about. What if she’s not getting enough to eat? What if she struggles to gain weight like Graham did for 8 months? What if I have to do all our feedings in the dark like Graham? What if, what if.

And during that time of struggle, I realized that it was on the basis of Jesus’ belief that she would be healed, that God would do it, not my frail or even well-done attempts at belief. I remembered that even when I am faithless, he is faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). So based upon His belief, I needed to fight like a justified sinner.

As her feedings continued to be difficult, I realized that setting a date to decide whether I should give up on breastfeeding or not would be helpful. A benchmark so to speak so that it didn’t feel like the pain of this was going to go on for eternity. I decided on January 14th to be a day to pray and evaluate what we should do.

January 14th came and went. It wasn’t great, but I decided to press on anyways. Her feedings were sometimes better. She was going down on the growth curve but not in the rapid way Graham had. And the Lord reminded me of Isaiah 30:18, “The LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!”

On February 11th, I was feeling fed up. God, why is this taking so long? Why haven’t you healed her yet? Did you speak to me or didn’t you? Please do it again if you have been speaking.

I opened my Bible and can’t remember what verse it was, because I was so mad when I read it that I quickly closed my Bible. The verse said something to the effect of “I will move in my appointed timing.” I kid you not. And while that was not the answer I wanted to hear, God was still speaking.

The next day, I was trying to get Harper to go to sleep after an exceptionally difficult day. She seemed inconsolable during awake times, unhappy while feeding and barely sleeping. And as I tried to shush and rock her to sleep, I felt like the Lord said to me, “She’s in pain.”

That thought had never occurred to me before. When she was younger, she used to have these spit ups that would project across the room. Scary, large spit ups. Never did I think it was GERD or that she was possibly in pain from acid reflux, so much so that it was causing a feeding aversion. Two days later, we were able to start her on acid reflux medication.

The following week I didn’t see much progress, in fact, I think things got worse. I would get woken up sometimes 6 times in the night. So much more than when she was even a newborn. I was scared and I was angry.

But on February 22nd I read Isaiah 26:3, “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” I realized that my heart needed to be steadfast, trusting in the Lord for perfect peace instead of fear. And that regardless of how Harper’s feeding situation was going, I needed to praise. So I began to sing and to worship in the midst of the sorrow and exhaustion and confusion.

The next night on February 23rd, Harper slept 6.5 hours straight. I was shocked. Grateful and shocked.

The sleep didn’t immediately continue after that. Nor was the breastfeeding finally easy. In fact, I was still anxious about whether Harper was getting enough to eat so I got help from The Thompson Method of Breastfeeding. I continued to struggle with trust, wondering if I had heard correctly from the Lord and would often cry out to Him.

But at a few days later at her 4 month check up, I learned that Harper’s weight had increased on the growth curve by 2%. For the first time in her life, she was no longer losing weight on the growth curve. Hers wasn’t the same story as Graham’s. God was healing her. She began to eat with me even when awake, and seemed to be in less pain when she did. She was even willing to take a bottle every now and then. Her naps were improving because she was actually feeling full after feedings, and on March 14th, Harper began to sleep through the night.

Feedings still aren’t perfect for us, but I know that I don’t have to be worried. God delivered her (and me) from inconsolable feedings that left Harper unsatisfied.

Testifying to who God is

And today, I just want to testify to His goodness. I had prayed that God would keep me from going through what I did with Graham. Instead, He had us go through the exact same tongue ties, and refined me through the fire of suffering. He delivered me not from, but through the very situation I had feared.

I’m learning that my trust in the Lord cannot be circumstantial. It has to be based upon Jesus and His Word. That praise is often the best antidote to a woeful, complaining heart. Praising in the midst of pain was the very last thing I wanted to do, and yet, it was exactly what I needed. I’m learning that I often question God’s goodness and whether He speaks to me when I’m struggling, and so writing things down to remember His Words and these verses has been important for me. God doesn’t care that things go according to our plan; He cares more about our growth, and our increased trust in Him, becoming more and more like Him in the process.

Breastfeeding is by far one of the hardest and best things I have ever done. If I hadn’t had one child who breastfed normally after a simple tongue tie release, I would think that I was crazy and should never attempt to breastfeed again. But I’m grateful for the sweetness of feeding Harper amidst the difficulty of it. I’m grateful for the sacrifice it has required of me, and the character it has developed in me. Sometimes I have wondered why my experience of feeding couldn’t be easier like so and so’s. That’s just not for me to say. But I’m grateful for a deepening in my walk with Jesus; learning to hear His voice, trusting what He says and obeying amidst the pain.

So friend, if you’ve made it thus far, I wonder–how is God inviting you to hear Him, trust Him or testify about Him, today? Having just gone through it myself, I believe that He will use your struggle and growth for His glory and for your good. Trust Him with the process.