Makayla Colgan
"Hello my name is Makayla I am 25 and a mother of a 4 year old and a 2 year old, soon to be 3 in October. I knew from the moment I became pregnant with my first son at age 20 I wanted to breastfeed. I had a lot of people tell me not to be too set on it. That anything can happen. I honestly laughed at them thinking “how hard could it be?” I had a normal pregnancy and labor and gave birth to my son at Beaumont. To my surprise he had an unexpected complication. He was born with 2 collapsed lungs. Because of this he spent a week in the nicu and his first feedings were through a bottle. I was devastated, and to make things worse he then refused to latch no matter what I did. I tried repeatedly. I cried often I felt like a failure. I pumped for the first 6 weeks of his life and one night I was so tired and defeated I said enough is enough. I had to stop for my own sanity. I cried feeling like a failure again, but looking back now I know it was the right choice for me. With my second son I gave birth in a small hospital in lapeer county. This hospital is way outdated. I asked if they had a breastfeeding consultant and they laughed. They immediately were trying to get me to give my son (who had no complications) a bottle just because he was cold. He was cold because they didn’t give us any time for skin to skin as they should. I kept refusing as I knew what introducing a bottle too early did to my first born. Mentally my anxiety was terrible at this time and breastfeeding was not easy. My nipples hurt so bad. I was SO exhausted when he would spend hours and hours a night cluster feeding but I didn’t want to give up. At one point I almost gave up but then I said “one more day” and kept saying “one more day” and then it seemed to suddenly become easier one day. After a while it was so natural and easy and pain free. He is almost 3 and now I’m actually having trouble getting him to stop breastfeeding. But this mamma is done lol. My best advice I can give is don’t give up I promise you it will get easier. But at the end of the day if something happens and you really can’t breastfeed like you had hoped don’t be too hard on yourself. One day you will see the bigger picture that it wasn’t worth crying over. All you can do is try your best."