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Breastfeeding, in the rare cases where it is present in fiction, is depicted as a warm, relieving, comforting, bonding time between mother and baby. When I found out I was pregnant with my first child I immediately looked forward to a time when we could cuddle together and I could offer such a sustaining and comforting relationship to my baby. I imagined being curled up together and the baby snuggling against me, his little jaw working and sucking, him growing big and fat with the nutrition I was providing for him. I knew from the get-go that breastfeeding was, as far as I was concerned, the ONLY way to feed my baby.

My labor was less than I would have desired, and ended with intervention due to my water breaking three days before my son's birth. What resulted was a series of pitocin, and epidural, oxygen, and adrenaline administered before he finally came to my arms. He was so small from the beginning. Much smaller than the eight pounds that had been predicted only two weeks before. He weighed in at five pounds and fourteen ounces and after three days of fetal distress he was also very weak.

Fifteen minutes after he was born, seconds after they finished stitching me up, I guided his little head to my breast and he stuck his little tongue out and licked at me once, then immediately turned his head away. My midwife showed me how to sandwich my breast in my hands and rub his lips with my nipple to encourage him to open his mouth. He showed no interest and the nurses and midwifes said he probably wasn't ready to eat yet, to not worry about it, that he would eat in a little while. I believed them, of course I did! After all, breastfeeding is easy, right?

I guess not.

Over the next twenty-four hours I counted twenty-three different women who grabbed my baby and breast at various angles trying to force him to eat. I was told that I had flat nipples and was given breast shells to encourage them to pop' up. This would make it easier for him to latch on, I was told. Finally, that night, after the night nurse yelled at me for not getting him to eat for the fifth time (though I was trying every two minutes to get a latch) they sent me a lactation consultant. She immediately brought out a breast pump, expressed out some colostrums, put it in a finger feeding tube and had my husband try to feed him with that attached to his pinky. We were able to squeeze some into his mouth, but he didn't suck.

Because of his problems sucking they held us in the hospital for three days. I got

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