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	new baby breastfeeding

Breastfeeding Miracle
By Jenn Seager
Issue 142, May/June 2007

Breastfeeding was something I had always looked forward to. I had warm images of cuddling my future child as he or she suckled happily at my breast. Breastfeeding was the only option for me. In my opinion, there is nothing more natural, perfect, and healthy for a baby.

So there I was, waiting for the day when I'd become pregnant, then the day I would give birth and share the ultimate bonding experience with my precious child. From the time all the stars were properly aligned and I knew it was time to begin to try to conceive, it was an agonizing six months until I watched my pee perform magic tricks on a stick. Two pink lines confirmed it: We were going to have a baby. Finally.

My pregnancy began as had so many others I'd heard about. I was emotional. I had 'morning' sickness 24 hours a day. I had crazy cravings. I had the 'glow' that came mainly from knowing there was a life growing inside of me—a perfect miniature human being becoming itself in the warmth of my own body. It was all amazing and surreal.

After a bout of bleeding at 12 weeks, my husband and I discovered, through an ultrasound, that we were expecting not one baby but three identical little boys. One of my main concerns was breastfeeding. Would I be able to do it? Could I produce enough milk? How would I handle three hungry, crying babies at one time? I nearly drove myself mad with what-ifs, until I finally gave up on worrying and believed that it would all take care of itself—that yes, I could do it. If I could create, carry, and give birth to three babies, I could sure as heck provide them all with mummy's tasty milk.

I was still unaware of the monkey wrench that would be driven through the slowly wheeling spokes of my idyllic ever-afters. Because mine was considered a high-risk pregnancy, I had ultrasounds done every two weeks to check that the babies were growing properly and that there was enough blood flow to them. It was after one rather long scanning session, 15 weeks into my pregnancy, that my husband and I were given the numbing news that all three of our boys had cleft lips, and that one of them also had a cleft palate.

I went home that day in a fog, feeling so sorry for these innocent babies who, before they'd even been born, already had a lifetime of challenges ahead of them. I agonized over the mocking they would receive at school, the pain of the surgeries, the permanent scars. We immediately were referred to the hospital's fantastic 'cleft team,' a group of medical professionals who educate families dealing with these facial differences. Reading about clefts and meeting with the parents of cleft-affected babies helped put our minds at ease, but some of my questions were still unanswered. One of them was "Will I be able to breastfeed?" No one I asked—parents or doctors—had an answer.

I began to take it as given that, through no fault of their own, my poor boys would be denied their right to nurse. My feelings of guilt were overwhelming, though I didn't know why I felt that way. In my heart, I knew that their clefts were likely just a genetic fluke caused by the intricacies of a single egg dividing to create three individual beings. Still, that didn't stop me wondering if I could have done something to prevent it. I don't take drugs, I don't smoke, I eat healthily—I racked my brain to think of some external source that might have caused this. I wanted to blame something, someone. I wanted certainties—but life doesn't deal you those.

Time passed and I endured. At my 29-week checkup, I was told to go home, pack, then head back to the hospital. There was an issue of blood flow to two of the boys, who now had to be delivered right away. On March 27, 2005, our three beautiful boys arrived by cesarean section, each weighing roughly two pounds. Tristan, Owen, and Ace had made it: painfully small, covered in down, and each with a cleft lip in a different spot.

Because they were so small, they were at first fed minute amounts of a sugar solution. I was desperate to get my milk into them. I was convinced that this was what would make them healthy and able to come home faster. The night of their birth, I asked a nurse for a breast pump, explaining that I wanted to have my milk ready when the boys were able to accept it. I remember the anger I felt when she insinuated that my task would be fruitless—they would be unable to breastfeed anyway. After all, it's commonly thought that cleft babies can't create a strong latch on the breast because their lips can't create a tight seal. I remember sitting on my bed, sore and angry, a pump cup attached to each breast, willing the milk to flow like lava so that I could run down the hall with a brimming pitcherful of liquid gold.

I didn't get a drop. Not one. I did get red, bloody nipples and very depressed. Still, for the next four days of my hospital stay, I was attached to that pump. In pain, and desperate for some results, I pumped like a madwoman. My boys needed me. They needed my milk.

Still nothing. One sweet nurse promised that, once I was back in the comfort of my own home, the milk would come. Liar, I thought. Leaving the hospital and our weak but spirited boys that Thursday night was the hardest thing I have ever done. We stopped at the drugstore and rented a breast pump. I didn't care if the odds were stacked against them—I was determined that our wee men would be granted the same rights as those born with unscathed lips.

I set up the pump in their nursery, a Polaroid photo of each boy on the floor at my feet. I had been told by someone, somewhere along the way, that looking at a photo of your child or smelling one of your baby's blankets would aid in the production of milk. Because I had had only the pleasure of stroking my sons' tiny fingers through the portholes of their incubators, the blanket option was out. Polaroids it had to be.

Sitting in my rocking chair, I cried and rocked, cried and rocked, my eyes shut. I was afraid to see the emptiness of the milk containers. When my time was up, I opened my eyes to shut off the machine—and nearly passed out when I saw that the cups were full of milk. With a shriek of victory, I tore down the hall to find my husband. Of course, I'd just had a C-section, so I wasn't breaking any speed records, but I felt as energized and fleet as a track star. Wild-eyed, I shouted and pointed and waved my containers of milk in the air. "Look! I did it! I did it!" You?d have thought I'd discovered plutonium. To me, this was bigger and better than that. I spent the rest of the night attached to the pump, filling sterile bottle after sterile bottle with breastmilk.

This became a routine. I'd pump every three hours, filling bottles to bring to the hospital's neonatal unit. I was lucky that the McMaster University Medical Centre (in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) advocates breastfeeding, and that they encouraged my pumping. It became a joke around the unit that I was hogging all the room in the fridge. Though the nurses were on board with the pumping, there was still no one who could give me a definitive answer about whether or not I could breastfeed my babies. They were fragile, so small, so unable to take on the task—and any exertion could cause dangerous weight loss. It didn't help that they were hooked up to breathing apparatuses.

I was distraught that I might never feel my boys' warm breath on my breasts as they hungrily drank my milk. Then I met Beth. My lifesaver. My idol. My friend.

Beth was one of the lactation consultants who met with me. She encouraged me to breastfeed the boys when many thought they weren't yet ready. We set up small slots of time in which to try it out with each boy. The first to try was Tristan, the one with the cleft palate—the one for whom everyone said breastfeeding would be impossible. Beth insisted we give him a chance. I cradled his wee body and felt his warmth as he eagerly searched for milk. His tiny mouth could hardly fit around my nipple. Try as we might, the split in the roof of his mouth prevented him from creating suction, and his attempts were fruitless. Still, it was amazing just to have that time with him—and, thanks to Beth, it was captured forever on film. She was so touched by Tristan's spunk and desire that she dissolved in tears. I am forever grateful that she gave me the opportunity for that memory.

Soon, Ace and Owen made their booby debuts and, much to the naysayers' chagrin, both were nursing champs. They accomplished what so many had said they could not, and I am so proud of them for that. I vividly remember speaking with one of the members of the 'cleft team,' and saying how amazing it was that two of my boys could breastfeed like 'regular' babies. She looked skeptical, and hinted that it was impossible for a cleft baby to properly nurse. I proudly repeated that they could do it and would do it; and that for Tristan, who truly was unable, I would pump till I was empty, thank you very much.

Beth stood by me the whole two and a half months that the boys were in the hospital, offering advice and kind words, creating a united front against those who turned their noses up at the idea that, although my sons' lips might be broken, their spirits and ability to nurse were not. She was my cheering section when I thought I could not keep up with their appetites, my savior when people tried to talk me out of trying. I don't know what I would have done without her. We are blessed to have her in our lives.

Finally the boys came home, to a hectic and harried schedule of pumping and feeding. They were growing so big so fast (no doubt thanks to my marvelous milk) that the job became overwhelming. I literally had no time for anything else. The quick return of my periods slowed my milk production down to what seemed a trickle, and when the boys were six months old, I sadly waved my white flag of surrender to other means of feeding.

I still struggle with my feelings of guilt that I couldn't breastfeed them longer. I battle with myself over what I could have done to make my milk more plentiful. Thankfully, Beth reminds me that breastfeeding triplets is hard enough, never mind three babies with cleft lips. She assures me that I did them a world of good, and deep down, I know that I did. At 22 months, they are surpassing all of their developmental milestones for their actual age, not their corrected age. They are happy, healthy, and growing like weeds. They've recovered and healed well from their surgeries, and I am convinced that my breastmilk is the reason. And as for those "ugly" post-nursing breasts so many women worry about—my 38-double-Ds are now a 38-long, and I love their every stretch mark and "imperfection." They have served their purpose well, and deserve a future of rest and relaxation.

Jenn Seager is a 32-year-old mum of rambunctious triplet boys. In her spare time (ha!), she writes and takes photographs of her fellas.