Other-than-Other Mother Breastfeeding

Making the commitment to breastfeed is the most difficult commitment I've ever had to make.  And that's true for me despite it being easier for me than most.  But in the end, it's worth it; it's probably the most worthy effort I've ever put forth.
When Kody was born everything was easy.  It was a vaginal birth (5 pushes and he was out!)  He was a healthy baby boy all swollen and crying, - we even managed to gather his cord blood.  They took him only a couple feet away for a moment just to weigh him, and then they handed him back for an hour or two of straight cuddling.  When they placed him skin-to-skin on me, he immediately quieted and I think I have never been happier than I was at that moment of my life.
Of course, I didn't give birth to Kody.
And while I did breastfeed him, I was never the main course, - just appetizer and dessert as my lactation coach and friend, Donna, would say.
My recent birthing experience with Niky, our second, was very different.  
We were shooting for a natural birth again - I wanted a "natural" everything, so when he didn't want to come out two weeks overdue, I didn't want to induce.  I was 2-3 centimeters dilated for a couple of weeks.  Everyone told me it would be soon if I took the stairs, ate spicy foods, drank Cod Liver Oil, walked and performed other various physical activities.  I did most of those things, but to no avail.  Staring at a bottle of Cod Liver Oil had become a new nighttime mediation.
Finally, I just sat down to read Kody a bedtime story, and my water broke.  We called her mother to babysit, and my step-mother to drive, and we went to the hospital and waited.
The next morning, I was still only 2-3 centimeters dilated.  (1 centimeter by one doctor's estimation)! But my contractions were becoming unbearable.  I finally agreed to the epidural.  I was fine after that for a couple of rounds when suddenly the door busts open, and my doctor came in telling some nurse that she saw "it".  The next thing I knew my room was filled with a dozen people carrying me out and across the hall to an operating room.  I was off the monitors for one minute.  It took them less than ten minutes to rip Niky out.  I spent more time waiting for the X-rays they needed to make sure they didn't leave any tools inside me.  (They hadn't gotten the chance to count them.)
I thank god for my blessings however - namely my wife, Amy.  They would not take me down to Niky in the NICU as long as I couldn't walk, and right away the nurses began discussing the possibility of formula.  Amy, or Ema as we now call her, would hear nothing of it.  She was down there in a flash pumping her own milk so that his first taste was nature's perfect cure-all.  He may not have gotten hours of cuddling like his brother had, but in this family he would get breast milk!  He had only gotten a mere glimpse of me in the operating room, a flash of his Ema in NICU but he now faced 48 hours of heat lamps, IVs, monitors, and nurses he'd never meet again.  I wasn't even able to hold him after the couple hours it took for me to wiggle feeling back into my legs and get down there.  Then it took another hour or so for the nurses to succumb to my partner's demands that I be able to hold him despite all the tubes and wires.
  The next two days passed like a long dream.  I was down in that NICU every two hours for the next two days trying to get him to latch on and drink.  I was all alone at night.  They made Amy go home.  I wasn't making any milk yet but the nurses insisted that if I didn't try once every two hours, they were going to give him the formula.  They also insisted he stay there until the antibiotic ran its course.  Apparently, he'd been born with some extra fluid but this is a likely side effect of a C-section. I still hadn't gotten a straight answer as to what "it" was that my doctor had seen which caused them to rip him out of me in the first place.
In addition to all his problems, my body had just been assaulted.  My milk was just not coming in yet.  It was a very nerve-wracking time.
When the antibiotic had finished, and they finally gave him over to me,  they said he was beginning to show signs of jaundice.  That's when they were really pushing for formula.  My pediatrician took charge and held them off, but she was concerned that he learn to nurse off me (as opposed to Ema's bottled breast milk) or else I might never initiate production.  I now had one night to try to make him drink enough to get his color back. 
I remembered how a friend of mine had been unable to bring her little one home before she was released due to a bout of jaundice.  She'd looked defeated the night we took her home.  She'd said it was a terrible feeling to leave the hospital without your baby.  
I wasn't going to let that happen.  He'd already been through enough.
So despite practically zero sleep for four straight days, I finally had him back in my hospital room and set up to feed him all night.  I had an ounce of Ema's milk and an eye dropper that I used to entice him to my nipple.  It was a euphoric reprieve for both of us.  We were finally alone in a nice quiet room together.  He nursed; I talked.  I remember that night as rare perfection, holding him to me for warmth, feeling him calm for the first time in his life.  He knew my voice.  He'd look up at me at times while I spoke to him in ways that made me feel our future together.  We got a kind of late start but that night we found each other again.  Niky learned to nurse, and I learned the endurance it takes to be dinner!  We were released the next day and I began the long process of my own recovery and, thankfully, milk production.  Of course, the poor little guy kept sucking with part of his mouth to the side for the next week and a half looking for Ema's more-plentiful supply from an eye dropper!  But we eventually found the rhythm.  
As it turns out, the difference between mother and "other-mother" breastfeeding isn't much. The little guys sometimes do have preferences but their preferences vary, and at least I always have somebody else to take over if I need to go to the bathroom.
As for all you breastfeeding other mothers without "Other Mothers?"  I don't know how you do it.  I have to say, I highly recommend always having a spare pair.  But I'm certainly proud to be a part of your club, even if I do sort of cheat.

Other Mother Breastfeeding

Here's a thought for anyone who cares: I spend $100s, invested hours, almost ruined two small, delicate but very important and valuable parts of my own body, - just to breastfeed.  As it turns out, the best I can do is offer him a little colostrum, and a lot of comfort.  
It's still valuable, but in truth I may have been able to offer it before the $100s and hours.  Then again, maybe not.  I took the Fenugreek (pills and liquid), "More Milk" (liquid), drank organic Mother's Milk tea (yuck!), purchased Domperidone (which is illegal in the States), endured headaches and sleepiness each of the first two weeks I'd use it to restimulate, ate oatmeal and pumped - goodness did I pump - every day, in bed, at home, at work - sometimes trekking all the way to a dirty closet in the basement of the school I work in on my 35 minute prep period to set up and pump 10 minutes, unpack and trek back up. Sometimes I'd pump hours, 3-11 times in a single day.  Watching a single drop of colostrum grow was thrilling, and to be honest, all I ever really wanted was to be able to offer him the extra antibodies.  I stopped, thoguh, when the next step was a SRS machine which feeds him while he works to get me to make milk.  I didn't really need it it anyway.  He comfort sucks any time if I'm there and he doesn't start off too hungry.  
But the other day when Amy asked me how I felt about breastfeeding in public, I think she was surprised when I said "I hate it" without-missing a beat.  
Amy was not looking forward to public displays of breastfeeding.  I, on the other hand, the usual "shy-er" one, did not anticipate hesitation at all.  I don't normally think twice where only my pride is at stake.
But "other" mother breastfeeding is not only physically challenging, it's socially intricate.  I mean there is the usual gambit of men and women who seem partially limited in visual scope the minute that baby goes under the cape (Why?  I mean, there's a cape!), yet still, one might worry if they encounter those more eager stares.  But most in our presence know that Amy was Kody's birthmother, and if they don't know before, they soon learn in our presence, that she's the primary breastfeeder (primarily).  At home, I've come to learn that the comfort suck can be just as important for Kody as the feed-suck.  The kid won't take a pacifier, and he never tires!  (It's such a shame more men don't engage their children on this level. Men can pretty much do everything that I did.  I'm more than sure that "Honey, he wants his mommy" thing would dissopate and a little more responsibility would kick in.  Wouldn't that be a nice evolution for the sexes?)
But when a baby goes first on a boob (before they really learn how), I've noticed they have this way of bobbing and thrusting their head toward it in such a way that thwarts all of your gentle guidances and usually serves to frustrate them.  In the end, nobody gets to relax until the kid at least begins to cry and mom can utilize that opportunity to smoosh his face square on the nipple and hold it there until he latches properly.
But when that happens to me in public, I feel like such a weird-o.  How could I possibly expect men to give in and let their children breastfeed (or at least comfort suck) from them if I can't even handle a few strangers wondering why I'm thrusting my boob into this other woman's baby's mouth?