Our breastfeeding experience (first 5 months)

I wrote this for my daughter, and felt like sharing.

Hey baby girl, if you're reading this, I'm guessing your not a baby any longer :). I hope you have chosen to breastfeed your own children. I know that it isn't easy at the beginning, but hey, you've got some experience under your belt, even if it's on the other end. I didn't have any! And neither did anyone in my or your dad's family. Don't get me wrong, everyone was supportive, I didn't have any purposefully negative comments from anyone. But, I just think that some of the comments that were made, would not have been made if they had experienced the same pressure that I was going through. Maybe I was just being extra sensitive. But, really, what is more stressful than feeling like you aren't making enough food for you baby. Especially since you were just a little peanut, I sometimes felt that people thought you needed more. It was hard not knowing how much milk you were getting at one sitting, and slightly unsettling when you would eat for almost an hour at a time. Had I known then, that even though the books say every two hours, it is very common for babies to feed more often than that than I would have breathed a little easier in those first weeks, and had more confidence in myself as a new mother. I think that was the largest hurdle.

I would like to believe that when you have children, the skepticism that surrounds breastfeeding will be gone.  But, just in case its not and you have been hurt by any comments, please know that their concern only comes out of love. I'll tell you what I wish I could go back and tell myself: You are doing a good job. You are the most perfect source of nourishment for your child just keep believing in yourself. I remember when I learned that indigenous peoples breastfeed for just a few minutes several times an hour, it took a lot of pressure off. It just seemed like, hey there isn't a "right" way to do this, it's just what works for each mother and baby. I felt justified.

So now let me go over the more day to day trials we went through. We breastfeed right away, about 10 or 15 minutes after you were born. I asked to do skin to skin and then I asked to try to breastfeed. It was hard to tell if you were really taking anything in at that point. After we admired for you an hour or two, you were going to go get a bath and a shot in the nursery and daddy was going to go with you while I got settled int our new room. But you came back rather quickly because they thought you should try eating again. That time, I could tell you were really nursing. Honestly, I don't remember too much about that particular experience. I do remember, that the next morning, the lactation consultant came in to help me on my left side because it is somewhat "inverted". To make sure that I was producing on that side, I pinched myself and pulled a bit and, there it was, a drop of liquid gold: colostrum. I started nursing you in a football hold on that side, I used the foot ball hold and the cross cradle hold almost exclusively for the first 6 weeks (ish), which is funny because now I never use them. I think they are just the easiest ways to hold a tiny baby and have the most control over the latch.

Everything went great at the hospital and at home until maybe 4 days later, I noticed I was quite lopsided. I thought the left side was smaller because it couldn't produce enough, so I tried to feed extra on it so that it would make more and even me out. Well, in retrospect, I think it was really that I got engorged on my right side because when I finally pumped it down, it didn't get that big again. Meanwhile, you were having a harder time latching on my engorged right side, and it started to get a "crack" (really basically an open wound). This I think made engorgement worse since you couldn't suck effectively, and as a result, I the milk ducts clogged up. It got so bad that I ended up with a small bout of mastitis (again only recognized in hindsight). I had a red patch on my breast, I had a bad headache, and had really bad chills. It also happened at a time when I was really exhausted, which can lower your immune system and, whala -mastitis. So, like I said, I pumped, and the strings of rubbery milk clogs came out. I remember I filled up that little 5oz bottle that comes with the pump right to the brim.

We were over the clogged duct/engorgement/mastitis huddle, and on the the next- my sore cracked nipple. So I started to pump on that side and feed on my left, hoping that my right side would heal. Well, after a few days, my right nipple had NOT started to heal AND my left nipple had started to crack. It was pretty painful I won't lie, mostly right when you would latch on. But when the pain was bad, I used to tell myself that it was better that I was in a little pain than you being in pain.  I had heard a lot of stories of moms having to change formulas because they would upset their baby's bellies. So, I tried lansinoh lanolin cream (a side note here: lansinoh is the brand and lanolin cream is what it is, well some of the midwifes/doctors only refer to it as lansinoh and when I said I was using lanolin cream apparently they didn't get it because then they would recommend I try lansinoh :/ I expected more but from trained professionals but what can I say), salt water rinse, tea bags, leaving my shirt off as much as possible, and taking extra vitamin C with no luck. So, next I tried nipple shields. Mom was staying with us at this point, so she went to pick up some cool gel pads from the lactation consultants and some nipple shields at the store. I used the nipple shields for almost a week probably. You had no problem with them. It was quite painful at this point, but the nipple shields helped a bit. At first I thought they were making you more gassy, but now I think that was probably just coincidence. Then it seemed like my supply had gone down, which we thought was probably due to the shields, and so I stopped using them. At that point, the pain was pretty much the same with or without them anyway. The low supply could have also been the fact that I didn't eat until 3pm one day because it was a fussy day and I just didn't have time.

Who knows what caused it, but the next few days were probably the most stressful breastfeeding wise, I just felt like you weren't getting enough, one of the days you didn't poop at all (when you had been going 2-4 times a day). We started giving you some of the milk that I had pumped and frozen. I felt horrible. But you eventually did poop and got back on schedule. I started taking fenugreek as a supplement (in seed form ground up and put into pills), and my supply did seem to come back after a day or two. I thought it was the fenugreek but your dad just figured it was the natural reaction since I had stopped using the shields. That's the other thing that was so hard about those first few weeks, not knowing anything for sure, but I guess that is just what parenting is about. Because I have used fenugreek since then when I've been pumping and not really noticed much difference, I think your dad was probably right. It it is definitely true that it makes your sweat smell like maple syrup though! While it is popular in Indian/middle eastern diets, it is also used in maple syrup to give it that smell.

So, back to the saga of the sore nipples. When you were about 4 weeks old I went into a breastfeeding support group that EMMC had once a month. I showed them my positioning and latch, and they said it looked perfect. They tried to give me some advice but I basically said I tried all of it already. It was nice to hear the other moms talk about their experiences and know that, while pain is not normal and you should seek help to fix it, pain is definitely common. I didn't feel so isolated any longer. In fact, every single mom their had some sort of issue to deal with at first, most experienced sore nipples, but one was dealing with an oversupply. One of the moms had a story very similar to ours, and told me that she just stopped trying things and eventually she healed. I laughed to myself when the lactation consultant said "yes, I like that advice", well it's pretty easy to say that now that I have told you nothing else worked!

My nipples finally healed completely at about 2 months, it definitely got a lot easier before that though. I've ofter heard that 6 weeks is when breastfeeding starts to get easier, and I think that was quite accurate for us. You were gaining perfectly and no more pain! I had made it! At some point I ended up getting clogged on my left side which lead to engorgement and mastitis symptoms again. I don't even remember when it was or why, except that it was during a time when I wasn't getting that much sleep again. So I definitely think there is truth about getting enough rest and keeping your immune system. When I look back at how far we come I am so proud! I think there was one point in each of those first weeks when I thought, I don't know if I can do this anymore, but I just kept doing it. And now it is so easy! No worrying to remember to bring formula or have to warm it up. There has been some situations where I have brought bottles of breastmilk with me but honestly its just so much easier to nurse, that I pretty much always choose that now no matter where we go. The only worry that I have now is that I won't be able to stop ;)