Before the birth of my first son, Reuben, I knew I didn’t want a C Section, but other than that I went in with an open mind as I knew that it was out of my control. Although I was induced with both my pregnancies, I did labour and give birth naturally. For my first, I had gestational diabetes which made labour very long; with my second, the labour was quick but he had the cord wrapped around his neck at birth which was scary – but, thankfully, everything was ok. After the births, I had minimal pain and I felt physically very well. 

I breastfed for 5 weeks with Reuben. I decided to just try and not put much pressure on myself, although when it came to it, I did put pressure on myself and I was very upset and felt guilty when I ran into complications.  

My first latching experience was not good. It was painful and it was hard to get both babies to latch correctly meaning they began to lose weight, and of course they were both very upset and not content. I didn’t want to breastfeed in public because of the poor latch I had to sit in uncomfortable positions to successfully get them to latch. It was a big shock to the system.