In honor of Mother's Day here is a 3 part post on a beautiful but difficult aspect of motherhood: breastfeeding. You can find Part 2 [here.](https://steemit.com/family/@pinkspectre/the-struggle-of-breastfeeding-part-2)

My son’s first action in this world was rooting for my nipple and perfectly feeding as though he was born to do so. He mastered breastfeeding before he had a name. I would like to take some credit for this miracle, but we know that a baby’s ability to breastfeed or not rarely has anything to do with the mother’s willingness or disposition. While my infant may have come in to the world ready for breastfeeding, I was certainly not ready for the task at hand.

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There was never any discussion between my husband and I about whether I was going to breastfeed or not. As natural lifestyle advocates, breastfeeding seemed like the natural thing to do. While he was confident in my body’s ability to perform this task, I was full of doubt and fear that my body would fail all three of us. Three years prior I had watched my sister struggle to nurse my newborn niece. Her body was producing milk, but my niece would not latch. Despite hours of exhausted effort on my sister’s part and our mother’s near insistence that she persevere. Spoiler alert: she didn’t and my niece is none the worse for her early diet of bottle fed formula. In fact, she is a bright and beautiful 4 year old, perfectly healthy and happy in every way. So while I knew that there was no harm in bottle feeding my baby, I was still fearful of failing at breastfeeding.

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These fears did not come to pass. My son took to the breast like a fish to water, but our breastfeeding journey was not without other terrors and trials. It was apparent from the get-go that breastfeeding did something to me. I recall nursing while sitting in the pink mid-century glider I adored and suddenly feeling ill. Deep in the pit of my stomach I was uneasy, and I was awash in something evil and lonesome, like homesickness. I was euphorically in love with my baby, but these dark moments in nursing were dimming the glow of that newborn baby bliss. Research conducted by both my husband and I revealed that I was likely suffering from Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex, or D-MER. The National Institute of Health describes this little known disorder as “an abrupt emotional ‘drop’ that occurs in some women just before milk release”. They believe it to be a physiological anomaly, but not much research has been conducted on the issue.