I feel like there’s a lot of talk about this topic but I still have yet to see a streamlined program to help people in the immediate postpartum period. Feeding was a huge issue for us until we eventually switched to formula. Then it was a year of constant spit-up. An image that stands out from this time: We were always running out of cloths so I sent my wife to Fabricville (her first time) to get a meter of flannel we could cut into squares and use. Instead of a cute baby fabric she came home with a red leaf pattern. These squares will always remind me of the hard early days but also the easier days when we got the hang of formula and the bottles.

I started some wonderful therapy during my pregnancy which helped me so much with my general anxiety but I was pregnant during Covid in 2021 so I never had the opportunity to have any in person pregnancy groups and felt isolated in that way. My largest struggle was post-birth. My daughter was born in April 2022 at the IWK in Halifax, NS and my labour and delivery was much longer and harder than I expected despite a long online course as an alternative to a pregnancy group. I was so happy to meet my daughter and that she was healthy but I was in so much pain the first few days it was shocking to me. Added to this the baby could not latch and due to Covid the lactation nurse did not come for two days. Baby was losing weight and my anxiety was awful. I was told to keep trying with breastfeeding every two hours. One night a nurse came in and aggressively told me I needed to pump using the hospital breast pump where I was instructed to sit up in bed, and hold the pump the whole time while leaning forward, all this while I was in excruciating back pain from the delivery. The pumping felt like torture and made me cry and feel physically ill. The next shift a nurse angrily told me the baby was still losing weight and we had to use formula immediately, as if we had been offered this and refused at some point. It was at this point I felt absolutely dejected like I should have known to ask for formula sooner. Thankfully baby ate and gained enough weight and we took her home but the latching issues continued. We were told we had a three-week wait for an appointment to see a doctor who could “fix” a tongue tie which was likely the issue. 

My wife and I were extremely nervous about this and did not want to cut part of our daughter’s body, especially since she was taking bottles well. We decided against seeing that doctor and I got a hands free pump bra and we decided I would exclusively pump. Within a week of once every hour trying to breastfeed, offering her the bottle and THEN spending 30 mins pumping I was overwhelmed and so nauseous. I couldn’t eat enough calories to keep up. 

I got one phone call from a public health nurse and I was begging for help with the nausea and sense of doom I felt with every scheduled pumping session. The advice I got was to “power pump” for one hour at a time. After that phone call I felt like I truly lost my last will to do it. Looking back it’s so sad. I didn’t feel listened to and had so little followup. The next time I saw someone was at six-week post birth with my GP who asked some standard questions and sent me on my way with a “congratulations.”

The moments that stand out are those dark nights in the hospital knowing the baby wasn’t eating enough, feeling so scared and responsible and like we were failing her. We couldn’t have visitors and couldn’t leave the room without a mask and I felt so locked away.

I wish I was prepared for the pain after and knew how to advocate for myself more after the birth. I honestly still don’t understand why I felt so awful with pumping. Nobody ever explained to me why that was physiologically. I hope to learn more myself next time. I also plan to save money and hire a postpartum doula to come into my home and help us and answer my questions for feeding. It shouldn’t have to be like that. I wish these services existed for us here. My friend lives in Australia now and got services like that for free as part of normal postpartum care.

If I could offer advice to someone going through the same thing it would be: Use the support system you have to try and find you help. It’s too much to do alone and in that period you don’t have the capacity to be doing your own research for professionals.

When I look back, I am struck by the sense of hopelessness that I couldn’t feed my baby. It felt like a personal failure because the pumping worked but I didn’t have the will to go on and felt so little support for my specific situation.

My wife and I did another IVF embryo transfer this summer that resulted in a miscarriage in the fall of 2023. That made me feel a numbness I’ve never felt before. I’m so thankful for my daughter, but I’m almost 37 and want another baby so we will keep trying as long as we can afford to. I’m hopeful this time can be better as my pregnancy was actually great and I felt so cared for. I’m hoping with covid restrictions down now I can actually meet some mom friends with kids of the same age. That may have helped, but I’ll never know.

—Kelley Whitten