I went through five years of infertility and two rounds of IVF to get pregnant. After a decently smooth pregnancy, I endured a three-day induction and a traumatic C-section during which I lost a significant amount of blood. My baby was sent to the NICU for low blood sugar at 12 hours old and given formula, but I was only given a pump 24 hours after birth.

I pumped every two hours in the hospital and met with all five of the hospital's lactation consultants, but never collected more than drops. My baby also wouldn't latch, and we later found out that he had tongue and lip ties. By Day 3 I was still collecting drops, and by Day 5, when we were discharged, the lactation consultants told me that "formula was just fine" and to use an SNS to feed my son if I wanted to breastfeed. I met with an independent lactation consultant the day after I came home, and she suggested that I keep my pumping schedule and take a host of supplements. I tried to keep this up, and even dragged myself out to multiple stores eight days after my C-section to locate the supplements. But after three weeks of round-the-clock pumping, downing supplements, chugging water and adding in breast exercises and power pumps, I wasn’t making more than a total of two ounces of breast milk for the entire day. At most pumping sessions, I was barely making 10 mL combined.

I had entered the hospital planning to exclusively breastfeed, but by my baby’s 10-day check-up, my baby was getting 90 percent formula and 10 percent breas tmilk in a bottle. I was traumatized from the birth, exhausted, anxious and utterly broken. My midwife, who is known in my city for her knowledge of women's health, simply told me that she had experienced low supply too but powered through it and nursed her daughter for eight months. There was no other advice, and she said that she'd only check my hormonal bloodwork if I was no longer breastfeeding. Finally, a friend who used to work with La Leche League came over twice to help my son latch. She watched me struggle for 20 minutes to get him to latch for less than 5 minutes, then declared that I "just needed to nurse him more" to fix my supply issues.

After nearly six weeks of holding my pump bottles instead of the baby I worked so hard to have, I began to wean off the pump, and our breastfeeding journey ended. I got back in touch with the independent lactation consultant, who loaned me the books "Healing Breastfeeding Grief" and "Finding Sufficiency," which is how I learned about IGT and chronic low supply.

*Jane is a pseudonym to protect the author’s privacy.