An Open Letter to the Lactation Consultant I Almost Saw

Dear Ma'am,

The incident I'm about I am about to describe took place almost 9 months ago, during the second week of October 2014. At the time, I was too overwhelmed by being a mother of a newborn to process what I was feeling, but now I have more clarity and wanted to write this so that, in case you or any of your colleagues across our nation or even the world came across this, maybe it would help you improve your services.

When I called you, my baby was 16 days old. I hadn't been able to breastfeed my older child, but wanted to try with this one. We'd gone through the colostrum stage and had all of the expected diapers for a newborn, but then once we moved on to the milk, he had not had a "regular" dirty diaper.

Days passed. I heard everything from, "It's nothing; lots of breastfed babies use up everything in the milk and only wet" to "He's constipated; use a suppository" to "Something could be very wrong." In my mommy heart, I wasn't concerned. But I trusted my midwives, and once we were closing in on one week with no dirty diapers, they strongly suggested that I call you.

They said that, if nothing else, we could have the peace of mind that he was eating enough, as you had a very delicate scale that could indicate as much. So Friday afternoon, I called you to see if you were available on Monday.

You suggested that you come Saturday, because you said that in all of your years of doing this, you'd never heard of such a thing. After I agreed to that, you said, out loud, "I have plans with my family all day tomorrow, but I could come out first thing in the morning and probably not miss too much."

ITEM #1: That was unprofessional. This is your job. When you suggest a meeting time, either make it work or don't and tell me you misspoke. I don't know you; we're not friends. I don't need to know that you might be blowing off things you promised your kids to fit me in. Incidentally, I would have been fine with Monday. I would have preferred Monday, as I take much more of a "wait and see" attitude with this kind of thing, unless something "tells" me otherwise. As it was, I was full of postpartum hormones, and whether you meant to make me sound like a burden, or like you were doing me a huge favor, your thinking out loud made me very anxious. And I was already feeling pretty icky, what with people telling me that I was being too complacent about my child's care. Again, this is a lot of "new mom" emotional stuff, but these are the women you chose to serve. You're getting paid. Please treat me with professionalism.

You suggested that you would come out at 8:30, and that you'd need about thirty minutes to set up your scale, so we'd do the weigh-in at 9:00. Then you said, "Don't feed him for about two hours before I get there." I almost laughed. At that point, pretty much all of my time was spent feeding him. I said, "I'll try! He wants to nurse around the clock, no set schedule, and he wails if I try to put him off" to which you responded, "If you feed him fifteen minutes before I get there, there's no point in my coming. I need to get an idea of how much he's getting during a full feeding." I didn't go into the fact that every fifteen minutes *was* pretty much a full feeding, as we were doing it. That wasn't really important. If you'd stopped there, I would have understood you, and it would have been fine.

But then you said, "Besides, you're the parent. At some point, you're going to have to let him cry, so you might as well do it now."

ITEM #2: When he's just over two weeks old? You're a lactation consultant! If anyone were down with demand feeding, I would have assumed it'd be you. Here's what was going on: 1) My son might or might not be getting enough nutrition; the last thing I want to do is make him fast for two hours if he genuinely needs nourishment. 2) He is crying about 60-75% of his waking/non-feeding time, no matter what I do. Even when I intervene. Even when I'm holding him. So when I can soothe him to keep him from crying, that's what I need to do. 3) Did I mention the postpartum hormones? I did not need a lecture. I know I'm the parent. And now that my baby is 9 months old, I do let him cry when he wants to nurse but it won't work, especially when I have other snacks to offer and know he's very well fed. But during those first few weeks, it's hard enough without someone taking a peremptory tone, especially because I tell you I want to feed my baby. Not smoke around him. Not leave him in his crib while I run across to Taco Cabana. I know this is what you do every day, but you need to remember that I'm a new mom. I need gentle care. Not scolding.

However, then you offered to do something kind. You said, "Tell you what, if you wake up around 6 and feed him, go ahead and text me, and I can come earlier."

I appreciated this, especially the next morning when we woke up at about 6:45 and, because we were co-sleeping and nursing all night, couldn't really remember when we'd fed last. I figured it'd probably been within the half hour to hour before that, so I texted you. I also wanted you to know that, guess what, he'd had his first dirty diaper that morning! (I cried. Seriously.)

You said, "Okay. I'll come at 8:30 instead."

Uh.

ITEM #3: Our appointment was supposed to be at 8:30. So coming at 8:30 wasn't early. It was on time. I thought, "I'm glad I texted her! I wonder if, because she told me 8:30, half an hour to set up, and we'll weigh in at 9, she thought or wrote down that the appointment was at 9. Whew!"

Then I thought, "Oh! Maybe she means we'll weigh at 8:30, so she'll get here at 8!"

I took Mal outside to sit on the porch with me, so that the rest of the family could get some rest. It was raining that morning, and cool enough to be nice. I don't remember there being any mosquitoes.

Mal started fussing around 7:45. I walked with him, and I bounced him. I assured him you were on your way. As the minutes slipped by, I realized you meant you'd actually arrive at 8:30, but I felt like we were so close, I could do this. You'd be there soon. You'd talk to me and maybe it would distract him. It was going to be fine.

Mal started crying for real at about 8:15.

At 8:25, I thought about our housing situation and texted you where you could park without having to pay. Then I watched, looking up and down the street, waiting for you. I didn't know what you were driving, but there were not a lot of cars out. I started waving and smiling to cars inching by like they were looking for something.

ITEM #4: At 8:38, you texted me, "I'm running about 15 minutes late."

I knew we were done.

I texted back, "Don't bother, then. I have to feed him."

Because, frankly, if you said you were 15 minutes late, at this point I was assuming you were half an hour late, and it was already late and my baby had been fussing for an hour, and I was done.

You texted me, "I'm driving in the pouring rain. Are you telling me to turn around and go back home??"

ITEM #5: I just told you I didn't want the consultation. You don't need to "verify" it by putting a guilt trip on me. I can see that it's raining. I've been out here for over an hour. You should have texted me before you ever got into your car. Clearly, you realized you weren't on time. Why not text me when you realized there was no way you'd be there at 8:30, even if it were just 5 minutes before?

In a few minutes, you texted me that you'd pulled over and were ready to talk. You highly recommended that we go ahead with the appointment, but I told you I'd already fed him. He was quiet. He was sleeping. He was content. I did the right thing.

And yet I felt bad.

So I offered to pay you something for your time.

Later, you texted me that your charge for cancellations was half of your fee, and that was a lot more than I'd planned to send you. But I was tired, and I was frustrated, and I didn't need the drama, so I had Chase send you an $85 check... for nothing.

You did tack on an, "Okay, well, feel free to call me if you have any questions."

Doubtful.

ITEM #6: If you're late for an appointment that involves something like withholding food from a newborn, your clients should be able to tell you that you need to reschedule without having to fork over cash for your tardiness. You weren't just late for the early you promised, you were late for the actual appointment, which you knew was going to be difficult enough for me, anyway. YOU were late. And I paid you. Bad form.

In conclusion, I'm sure you're great at what you do. I came to enjoy and, I suppose, expect a certain level of care because of my awesome team of midwives. They would not have affiliations with you if you were not competent and their clients did not like you. Maybe you were just having a bad week. I don't know.

But, again, you have chosen to perform a vocation in which you deal with new mothers. New mothers are emotionally as sensitive to their new world as a baby is to his. Everything feels over the top and scary and discombobulating. I did not want or need tough love at that point.

So, what was the problem?

In the end, I don't think there was one.

I know my kid's latch sucked (or didn't suck?... properly?), and that's probably one reason we had to feed so much and so often. He's still really bad at it, but whatever we're doing is apparently working.

Hope whatever you're doing is working for you, too.

Then and now. Think he's doing okay! Oh, and he likes vanilla almond milk!