I ended up delivering my first baby early due to my unstable blood pressure. My little “32-weeker” (the amount of time she spent gestating) was whisked away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) as she couldn’t regulate her body temperature. I went to the Postpartum Intensive Care Unit by myself.

Alone.

I had to be on medication for 24 hours before they allowed me to get out of bed and make my way to the NICU to see my baby. I won’t go into detail here about the pain of getting up for the first time after a c-section. That’s a totally different story, but let me say, it was so horribly painful, that was the part that scared me the most while pregnant with my second baby, haunting the edges of my conscious, waking mind — and positively running riot through my subconscious.

I did not make it up to the NICU to see my little girl until a full 36 hours after she was born — the loneliest hours of my life.

To give birth to a baby, and not even get to hold her, was brutal. I got a nurse to push me in a wheelchair up to see my baby. She was tiny and on a breathing tube, and even the preemie diapers seemed to swallow her little body. Her nurse asked if I wanted to hold her and I mentioned how I wanted to try getting her to latch onto my nipple to get her started on breastfeeding. I was met with a blank stare and flat-out no.

‘Premature babies need formula,’ I was told sternly. ‘Their bodies can’t digest human milk,’ I was told harshly. Even though March of Dimes says otherwise. Even though the American Academy of Pediatrics says otherwise.

But it was too late. I gave birth in a hospital which wasn’t current on breastfeeding best practices, and that was that. I was told that if I didn’t listen to the NICU staff, I risked CPS (Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, here; commonly referred to as CPS, as in Child Protective Services) getting involved.

Because I wanted to nurse her from my breasts.

My daughter was in the NICU for nearly a month. By the time I got her home, my daughter was used to eating from bottles and refused to latch onto my nipple, and even if she had, I was nearly dry by that point.

My breastfeeding experience was not positive. I had serious postpartum anxiety and depression. I had trouble bonding. I felt like an empty shell just shuffling through life. To add fuel to the fire, I would receive dirty looks while mixing her formula in public.

“Breast is best.” “Formula is for quitters.”

I was verbally accosted on several occasions, adding to my depression. I felt I was a failure as a mom, all because breastfeeding didn’t work.

When I became pregnant with my second baby, I did my research. I found a new doctor and a new breastfeeding-friendly hospital. I made plans ahead of time, and packed my hospital bag with everything I would need to successfully breastfeed. My husband thought I was being paranoid, but I had to make it work this time. I was scheduled for a repeat c-section and my amazing doctor assured me I would be able to start nursing right there in the operating room as long as my son was healthy. He was full term so it was unlikely he would have any health issues that would require him to be moved to the NICU.

My son was born without complications, and my doctor stayed true to his word. As my abdomen was being sewn shut, I laid on the table with my breasts exposed, and let my newborn son try to latch on my nipple. I spent the next two days in the recovery ward, topless and letting my son nurse on demand.

This time, I didn’t get postpartum anxiety and depression. This time, I had zero trouble bonding. This time, my uterus shrunk back quickly. All of these are well-documented benefits of breastfeeding.

My son latched on easily, and besides the pain of raw nipples, our breastfeeding experience started extremely well. So well, in fact, that my son would flat out refuse a bottle of pumped milk. He only wanted the breast, which made going out in public difficult. I had stocked up on cute, fashionable nursing covers, and thought we were ready to brave the outside world once my son was a month old.

Once again, I was wrong.

This is what’s called a ‘dry heat.’ Houston isn’t that. Houston is more like… a greenhouse in the Ninth Ring of Hell flooded, and for some reason, there’s also sweetgum seeds and pine needles everywhere.

My son was born in the Houston summer, and he didn’t like the idea of eating under a cover. I can’t really blame him. I wouldn’t want to eat under that cover, which trapped my body heat and the Texas heat, both, turning my chest into a furnace.

Our first public-feeding experience was a disaster. My son was hungry, but after I got myself properly covered and ready to modestly feed him, he was angry and didn’t want to eat all covered up and hidden from the world. What resulted was loud screaming to draw as much attention to us as possible, followed by wrapping his little limbs in the cover causing me to be fully exposed to all the onlookers. I heard people mumbling. Whispering. I turned beet-red. My husband jumps into action, helping me untangle my son, and cover my breasts, and we ran to our car to breastfeed in a more private setting.

Luckily, moving forward, it was the summer and I could wear a tank top and just discretely pop out a breast whenever my son got hungry. And as he became a seasoned nurser, I would expose no more skin than I would wearing a bikini top. I was still nervous though, and probably always will be.