My Painful 1yr Nursing Journey & Why it was Worth it

I was a first time mom and had just started my breastfeeding journey. The first challenge I faced was the hospital actually pressuring me to give my newborn formula and as a new mom who didn't know any better I followed that advice. This made it really hard to get a latch and stole my firstborns golden hour.I wish I could tell you it got better, but it didn't go smooth for the first 5 months and it was more challenging than I ever could have imagined, ending in an emergency surgery. Whether it's nipple shields, homemade formulas, pumping and dumping I have been there. Making it through my first year of breastfeeding was extremely challenging and the milkiiway nursing pillow is inspired from that place. The nursing pillow I had didn't offer proper support, didn't sit properly and I could only get it to work somewhat in a specific position sitting on my bed. I had tried a few on the market and none actually did what they were supposed to be designed for. And when you spend hours nursing... about 5hrs a day to be exact you spend a lot of time being uncomfortable. The amount of time gradually dropped but it still felt like a long length of time to be supporting my babies head. To top it off one of my boobs didn't get emptied properly and I had a galactocele grow to the size of a peach with an infection. After being in and out of the hospital 4x I was finally referred to a surgeon and he said "We need to get you in today!" I was put under anesthetic and they went to work draining this peach sized lump. Loopy and on drugs, this left me unable to lift my baby at 4 months old and nursing wasn't possible because the antibiotics I was on were affecting my son with extreme colic. When I could nurse again I was still very sore and struggled with proper support.By the end of my first year of breastfeeding my neck, shoulders, and back were a wreck. I knew something had to change so I made a bunch of measurements and figured out the areas that lacked support. This design is the result of those measurements plus lots of testing of materials, feedback from other moms, a few shape adjustments and here we are. With this in mind we are very open to feedback and we are always looking to make our pillow better or make something that works, if this is missing it's mark please reach out so we can collaborate on something that does.