Breastfeeding: J.'s Story

I found a lot of support and reassurance early on by hearing stories of other moms.  I will occasionally post those stories here for more encouragement.  It was helpful to see that things don't always go smoothly, but there are ways to cope and move forward.  The most important thing is that our babies are being fed!

Below is J.'s story.  I'll include her update from just about a week ago plus posts that she put on her blog regarding the early days of breastfeeding.  Thank you so much, J., for sharing your story with us!

 

A little backstory:

My daughter, A.,  was born at 35 weeks, 4 days, weighing 5 lbs, 11 oz.  She was discharged from the hospital at 2 days old, weighing 5 lbs, 7 oz.  She was back to birthweight by 5 days of age.  We struggled and struggled and struggled with breastfeeding.  It was so important to me, and I felt like the world’s biggest failure because I couldn’t do it.  Something *must* be wrong with me, right?  That’s certainly how I felt.  I had amazing support from my husband and my family, and that’s pretty much the only thing that kept me going!  As you can see by the following posts, I was able to successfully nurse.  I got mastitis once when my daughter was 3 weeks old, and again when she was 8 months old.  We soldiered through it, and I’m still nursing (pretty frequently…4-8 times/24 hours) at 17 months of age. 

 

I’ve dealt with pediatricians telling me that breastfeeding was causing the reflux in my daughter (her thought was that my daughter was overeating, causing the spitting up), I’ve dealt with lactation consultants whose method of helping was to give me a bottle of formula to feed the baby, I’ve dealt with mastitis and thrush.  Pretty much the only thing that didn’t go wrong with this nursing experience was my supply.  I have a fantastic supply. 

 

I ended up going and seeing a craniosacral therapist.  To be honest, I’m not a big believer in natural treatment.  I just don’t understand how it can work.  However, I was desperate and willing to try anything to get my daughter to nurse successfully.  I don’t know that the therapist made a difference, but I’m sure she didn’t hurt anything either.

 

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about breastfeeding.  The main one is that it is “natural”, so it must be easy.  Ha!  Ha! Ha!  It can be easy, I know.  It just wasn’t for me.  It took a lot of struggling and fighting and tears to make it work.  I felt like a huge failure because I couldn’t nourish my child.  I mean, it is such a basic thing, and so many people can do it, that it should just be easy with no problems.  I didn’t realize until much later that there is a huge learning curve, for mama and for baby.

 

Breastfeeding is something that is so important to me.  If you want to share my story, you are free to do so.  Maybe it would help other people who just want to throw in the towel (Of course, it might also frighten them.  My story isn’t that pretty!). 

 

--J.

 

 

I wanted to love on my daughter (A) immediately after she was born. That's when they are most receptive to learning to breastfeed. Well, I wasn't able to, since she was having a little bit of respiratory distress (minor retractions and nasal flaring). After about 30 minutes in the nursery, the nurse came in and asked me if I wanted to see her or if I wanted them to go ahead and clean her up. I told them to bring her to me, since I wanted to breastfeed as quickly as I could. She immediately latched on and did fantastic. We were able to feed twice before the nursery came to take her away for the doctor's rounds.

After the doctor saw A, the nursery brought her back to me. She refused to feed at the breast. Wasn't going to happen, no way, no how. I requested that a lactation consultant come talk to me, and she did. She talked to me a bit, then told me that it was normal for her not to nurse because she was a preemie and that she had to eat. She brought me formula and told me to give her that. That was the extent of my help with the lactation consultant at the hospital. I would pump and only get just a bit, then give her formula. My recovery nurse suggested that I put the pumped milk (colostrum) into a medicine cup and give her that. So, when we went home after she was born, she was taking formula. My milk came in on Sunday, so I was able to pump and give her breastmilk and stop the formula. I continued to offer the breast at every feeding, and A would scream and cry and not feed from me. More often than not, it ended up with A crying, me crying, and occasionally my husband crying. It was totally miserable for all of us. After calling my mom crying for the 3rd or 4th day in a row, she contacted a friend of hers that has a friend who is a lactation consultant in the area. R (the lactation consultant) and I exchanged e-mails, and she came over on Sunday (10 days after A was born). In a 3 hour afternoon, she was able to get A to latch on and successfully nurse. Wow.

It has been a learning process...A and I were just getting the hang of it when, on the following Friday, I woke up in the middle of the night with severe chills and a 102 degree fever. I had incredible malaise and a very sore, red breast. So starts mastitis. I called the doc when they opened and got a script for dicloxicillin. Just for the record, nursing with mastits hurts. A lot. Like, vomitting because the pain was so much and crying hysterically every time I had to nurse kind of hurt. It was not good at all. Then, it started getting a little better, and my nipples decided to start burning all the time, even when I wasn't feeding. I also noticed cracks and bleeding on both nipples. It was thrush, brought on by the antibiotics for the mastitis.

So, here's we are now. I can feed without crying. However, A is not latching on properly still, so the initial latch-on part is pretty tense. Once we get past the first 30 seconds or so, we are fine. It is a little uncomfortable, but I can deal with uncomfortable. I will probably try to see R again once I'm sure the mastitis and thrush are gone. I just feel like I have to get rid of a myriad of problems to be all better.

On a positive note, A is doing very well with her feeding. She is having very good output (lots of poops and pees) and her weight gain is great. I went into her pediatrician's office today (where I work...one of the perks) and weighed her. She weighed 7lbs, 5.5 oz. Holy cow! She has gained almost 2 full pounds since my husband and I brought her home 3 weeks ago! So, even though it has been really hard for me, it is worth it to make sure she is healthy.

--new post from a few weeks later

 

Things are starting to look up with breastfeeding. I saw a lactation consultant with the hospital, and she was unable to see any obvious reason for the pain. There were no signs of a yeast infection, either with me or with A. She sent me home with a nipple shield, in the hopes that maybe if we could keep A off the breast a bit, it would allow them to heal and not hurt so much. It sounds great in theory, but A wouldn't nurse if I was wearing it. So, back to square one.

We were out of town this weekend, and it was pretty miserable. My husband and I talked it over, and we decided to start the switch to a bottle, and, eventually, formula. It wasn't a choice I was crazy about making, but I was too miserable and was really starting to resent what I was going through.

We got home Sunday night and I started thawing some of the frozen breast milk that I had previously expressed. My husband gave her a bottle in the evening, but I nursed during the night. She did great with that! There was hope! Since then, we have had really good nursing times. I am having almost no pain with the right breast, and just a little bit on the left. Wes is still giving her a bottle in the evenings, since she will have to get used to taking one when I go back to work, but overall, I'm ready to give nursing another chance. I'm not sure what made things better...I know that sometimes it just takes time for the babies and mamas to get on the same page. Maybe it was giving myself permission to do something else. Whatever the reason, I'm very grateful.

I did take A to the doctor for excessive spitting up. However, she weighed 8 pounds, 14 oz, which was a gain of 18 ounces in 10 days. So, I don't think the spitting up is too terribly excessive! The doctor gave me some medicine for her, with the thought that she might be having some issues with reflux. It's fairly common in babies, and most of them grow out of it. Hopefully, that will happen soon.