For Susan, stopping breastfeeding was the biggest let down, even though she made this decision for the sake of their mental health and happiness.

Transcript

It was the biggest let down. I felt, you know, when you want something so, so bad and you feel so confident that you’re going to get it and then you don’t. How kind of heartbreaking it is when you don’t get what you want, that you think you should have, you know, that you think that you deserve to have. It felt like that but almost worst because it’s like I was letting down more than just myself. I was letting her down, I was letting her dad down, you know?

Her dad and I, we had talked while I was pregnant about how great it was going to be that I could breastfeed because we’d be able to save so much money and you know, money was a big thing for us, saving money, because of the one income. And so week three when I just couldn’t do it anymore, I felt like I had let him down because now we’re going to have to spend money on expensive formula, you know? I’d let my daughter down because, well breastfeeding, you know, I was always told breast is best. You know there was always so much pressure from OB’s and from the midwives to breastfeed and there’s all these signs and posters around the hospital promoting breast being best and I knew it was and I knew it was a good thing for her to have breast milk, but I just couldn’t do it and I thought to myself, is it better for me to keep doing this and be absolutely miserable and make her miserable the whole time or just to follow, you know, fed is best. And that’s what I ended up doing but the guilt ate away at me for a long time and even to this day it still kind of does.

I still think, I still see mothers in groups breastfeeding and I think maybe I should have stuck with it longer. Maybe I should have given it a little bit more of a chance. Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe there was something else I could have done. You hear of these moms who have problems with breastfeeding and they go through all these lengths to make it work and I think I should have done that. You know, like those moms are better moms than me because they did it. They did what they needed to do to make it work and I didn’t. I gave up. You know, like I just gave up. And the guilt that you feel from that is indescribable really because it’s not something you can really take back. You know, now she’s seven months and she’s passed, well she’s almost at the stage where she’s just going to be going onto regular milk, you know? And you think, well maybe with the next one. Maybe the next one I’ll do that. But until you’re actually in that position and you actually feel that way, you know, you don’t know what you’re going to do or how things are going to turn out. And I know that our happiness and our mental health is, was so important and that’s why I did what I did. But I do still feel very, very guilty about it.

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