"I hate breastfeeding"

I read this article from the Globe and Mail a little while ago. While I'm finally out of the Newborn Hell, I certainly can relate to this woman's emotions. She has it tougher because she has no one, other than her husband, to help her, but only when he's not working. I had lots of helping hands around the clock, and I still had several meltdowns and dark moments, so I can only imagine what it was like for her.

The reason why I'd posted this was because there are so many rosy pictures out there about the first month with a newborn, especially if it's your first one. No one knows how hard the adjustment is like until you actually go through it yourself. I don't think she hates the act of breastfeeding itself; it may be the sleep deprivation talking. But I recall resenting the fact that I was 1) healing from the delivery 2) trying to figure everything out 3) feeling like I was chained to this kid and resenting the feeling, 4) resenting the fact that I was so sleep deprived that I couldn't even enjoy my baby, even if it was only for a little while, and not being able to sleep when I wanted so desperately to, and 5) not given the time to adjust properly to this change in my life, or the rest to heal like I wanted to.

BabyL now takes only 5-20-ish minutes to feed, and his naps can be as long as 3 hours (one day he napped 4.5 hours, and he would have slept longer, but I woke him up. It probably was the heat wave we were experiencing), so things have gotten better. My nipples aren't hamburger meat any longer once I knew it was my forceful letdown that was causing the problem and I knew what to do to remedy that. However, breastfeeding is still a struggle for me because of the constant backaches of being hunched over, I still have forceful letdown issues which means that the kid won't always want to eat, and the sheer boredom of sitting there for many, many minutes.

So yeah, I still hate breastfeeding.