HAD HE KNOWN ALL ALONG?

When Kirsty Hart, 42, had trouble breastfeeding, maybe her baby was trying to tell her something

- JENNY ACKLAND, JOE CUSACK

Holding my newborn baby Uriah-Jack against my left breast, I waited for him to latch on.

‘What’s wrong, little man?’ I asked as he squirmed and fussed. Ever since he’d been born in August 2019, he’d preferred my right breast.

When I’d breastfed my first son Connor, 17 years earlier, it had been a dream - I’d loved snuggling with him on the sofa as he fed. But with Uriah-Jack, it just wasn’t as easy. So when I started to wean him off the breast at six months, I couldn’t help feeling relieved.

Then, one morning in March 2020, I was having a shower when I noticed a lump, hard and about the size of a Malteser, in my left breast near the nipple. ‘Ouch,’ I winced as my hand brushed over it.

Out of the shower, I told my partner John, then 40, what I’d found and asked whether he could feel it, too. ‘There’s definitely something there,’ he said.

It was the beginning of lockdown, so I called my doctor’s surgery and spoke to a nurse, who suggested it was probably just a blocked milk duct, which can be normal during weaning.

I was so relieved, and to ease the discomfort, every night once Uriah-Jack was asleep, I’d microwave a heat pad and hold it against the lump. Some days it would feel better, but on others it would throb with pain, and as the weeks passed I couldn’t help but worry my grandmother had battled cancer and it was always in the back of my mind.

In July 2020, I discovered I was pregnant again. It was a huge surprise, but both John and I were delighted.