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I've been around here for a bit but I don't know that I've ever really told my story... So... Here it is! It's loong but it does mention success (my understanding of it in my situation, that is) so it may be inspirational to others who are struggling.
My name is Felicia and I am a SAHM to Caleb (3 yr) and Arabella ('Bella' - 3 mo). I didn't breastfeed my first and I regretted it. I tried but not hard enough. The downside to being young, having little support, a traumatic and unexpected c-section and being in a non-breastfeeding friendly hospital.I relactated for him when he was around 6 months old and was able to provide him with about 12 oz of my milk a day for about 3 months. My great grandmother then got very ill and needed open heart surgery and I stopped pumping to spend as much time with her as I could. At least he got colostrum and some of my milk, better late than never.
I vowed I would breastfeed my future children. There was no doubt in my mind. I hated myself for not pushing harder with breastfeeding him. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last October. I learned that there is a potential link between formula feeding and type 1. They say that's why more and more kids are being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as more and more people turn to formula. That made my passion to breastfeed my daughter even stronger, regardless of the truth in this.
I had a very hands off pregnancy as I went with a group of midwives at a birth center. I planned for a VBAC with as little medical intervention as possible. I went into labor naturally at 41 +2. My labor was great, painful because she came down sideways but great. I ended up getting an epi (which I now regret) at 6CM and a few hours later they came in to roll me from one side to the other. That's when the hell started. She didn't like it and her heartrate dropped to 60. I got pushed back over real fast and her heartrate skyrocketed to 199. With every cocntraction, her heartrate dropped to 150. Variable (safe) decels but my MW freaked out. She checked me and I was 7CM and +1 station. She paged the OB for consult. By the time he got there I was 9CM. Basically, I transistioned really fast and it was really rough on her. The OB and MW freaked out and next thing I know, I'm being handed a barium shot and being prepped for a c-section. My husband actually watched and said they had to literally yank her back out of the birth canal. Chances are, my body was pushing already by the time we got to the OR. My perfect birth, shattered... Again.
Since she was a meconium baby, I didn't get to see her right away. They didn't even hold her up over the curtain for me to see. She was rushed off with the NICU staff to be suctioned. My husband said it was really bad, the pretty much pumped her stomach out. I got to see her in recovery but they wouldn't let me nurse her because she was breathing really fast.
They kept her in the NICU for 6 hours after her birth. I demanded to be wheeled up there as soon as I was in my room, they refused. It took me about an hour of 'either you wheel me or I'll get up and walk' before they took me there. Normally they don't allow c-section patients to the NICU at all. I would've walked, painfully but I would've. I attempted to nurse her but she was breathing really fast (180 breaths per min) and had a lot of trouble. I spent an hour with her on my chest praying that they wouldn't admit her. They came and took me back to my room and told me to sleep. Yeah, right... I just had the birth from hell and can't even hold my baby but you want me to sleep?! I requested a pump and was able to pump 1/4 oz for her. She sucked it down according to my husband. She was hungry. He stayed with her and kept the nurses from giving her formula or a paci.
She came up with me after her NICU stay and her first few nursings were great! She pee'd and poo'd just like she was supposed to. Then she went on a 14 hour nursing stike. During that strike, I requested to see the LC who told me that I didn't need to pump, just keep trying to get her to nurse. Oh, I wish I hadn't listened to her. Finally, the night nurse got us nursing, with a nipple shield.
She was born on a Saturday and we were released Monday. Not bad considering I had a c-section and standard stay is 5 days. The OB didn't even fight me on going home. We saw an LC on the way home from the hospital who helped us with latching. I nursed her around the clock for days and at 4 days old, she had lost 10% of her body weight and wasn't peeing. That was our first bottle of formula (2oz). I cried when I fed it to her. It was wrong, not how it was supposed to happen. I got a hospital grade pump, started pumping and taking herbs and domperidone. I started giving her whatever I pumped with a dropper.
Around 3 weeks, my milk supply seemed to have increased. She was peeing and everything. Then the Saturday she turned 3 weeks old, she spiked a fever of 103.6. She had a huge mass on her right breast. We rushed her to the peds hospital where they gave her an IV, a spinal and admitted us for 3 days. Nursing around an IV is not fun. Crash stopping domperidone and herbs is death to a supply. I developed severe yeast from her antibiotics. The hospital LC (yup, I asked for one there too, along with a pump) said it was one of the worst cases she had seen in a long time. It was awful to breastfeed through it. It got to where I couldn't nurse the one side at all. I pumped and nursed and bottle fed her the pumped milk. She was 8lbs when we got to the hospital... She was 7lbs 4oz when we left.
At her one month well baby, she was still under her birth weight. I had frozen milk in my freezer from a friend of ours so I started supplementing with bottles after nursings. I was blessed with a lot of milk from a friend through LLL and was able to supplement for a bit with that. Around this time, my LC found that Bella had a severe type 4 tongue tie. That explained everything. The weight loss, the drop in my supply... All of it. It was corrected at 5.5 weeks with a trip to NY to see a specialist. My supply was already severely compromised.
I had given up and resorted to EPing with my pittiful supply. I found milkshare and started posting asking for donations to make up my difference. I met a local mom who was gracious enough to share some milk with me and a lact-aid supplemental nurser. She helped us get set up, get baby latched and for the first time, my baby was happy and nursing. I could've cried.
It's been a rough struggle. I've bounced between EPing and breastfeeding. I've given up a few times. But I'm glad to say that I've stuck it out and am breastfeeding my baby with the help of donor milk. She's been lucky enough to have less than 6oz of formula in her life. And I cry over those oz but I didn't know about milk sharing then. I did the best I could. I stuck through it and with help of a perfect stranger, I'm breastfeeding my daughter. It's not ideal... There are still days where I wonder if it had been easier to just bottle feed. But then she pops off and gives me this grin and I know I made the right choice. I know I'm doing the best I can and my baby is getting so much good milk... Not just from me but from all of our donors too. I joke that I have the healthiest baby on the block... She's got so many different antibodies running through her from our various donors. Some people think milk sharing is gross, unsafe and a waste of time. My mom has expressed her concerns about what I could be exposing my baby to.
Well, if you've made it through my novel, you deserve a huge hug!
Thank you for letting me share my story. I'm glad to be a part of a place where people are like me and understand the challenges that can come with breastfeeding. Those with easy or perfect breastfeeding relationships can't understand on the same level.
My name is Felicia and I am a SAHM to Caleb (3 yr) and Arabella ('Bella' - 3 mo). I didn't breastfeed my first and I regretted it. I tried but not hard enough. The downside to being young, having little support, a traumatic and unexpected c-section and being in a non-breastfeeding friendly hospital.I relactated for him when he was around 6 months old and was able to provide him with about 12 oz of my milk a day for about 3 months. My great grandmother then got very ill and needed open heart surgery and I stopped pumping to spend as much time with her as I could. At least he got colostrum and some of my milk, better late than never.
I vowed I would breastfeed my future children. There was no doubt in my mind. I hated myself for not pushing harder with breastfeeding him. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last October. I learned that there is a potential link between formula feeding and type 1. They say that's why more and more kids are being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as more and more people turn to formula. That made my passion to breastfeed my daughter even stronger, regardless of the truth in this.
I had a very hands off pregnancy as I went with a group of midwives at a birth center. I planned for a VBAC with as little medical intervention as possible. I went into labor naturally at 41 +2. My labor was great, painful because she came down sideways but great. I ended up getting an epi (which I now regret) at 6CM and a few hours later they came in to roll me from one side to the other. That's when the hell started. She didn't like it and her heartrate dropped to 60. I got pushed back over real fast and her heartrate skyrocketed to 199. With every cocntraction, her heartrate dropped to 150. Variable (safe) decels but my MW freaked out. She checked me and I was 7CM and +1 station. She paged the OB for consult. By the time he got there I was 9CM. Basically, I transistioned really fast and it was really rough on her. The OB and MW freaked out and next thing I know, I'm being handed a barium shot and being prepped for a c-section. My husband actually watched and said they had to literally yank her back out of the birth canal. Chances are, my body was pushing already by the time we got to the OR. My perfect birth, shattered... Again.
Since she was a meconium baby, I didn't get to see her right away. They didn't even hold her up over the curtain for me to see. She was rushed off with the NICU staff to be suctioned. My husband said it was really bad, the pretty much pumped her stomach out. I got to see her in recovery but they wouldn't let me nurse her because she was breathing really fast.
They kept her in the NICU for 6 hours after her birth. I demanded to be wheeled up there as soon as I was in my room, they refused. It took me about an hour of 'either you wheel me or I'll get up and walk' before they took me there. Normally they don't allow c-section patients to the NICU at all. I would've walked, painfully but I would've. I attempted to nurse her but she was breathing really fast (180 breaths per min) and had a lot of trouble. I spent an hour with her on my chest praying that they wouldn't admit her. They came and took me back to my room and told me to sleep. Yeah, right... I just had the birth from hell and can't even hold my baby but you want me to sleep?! I requested a pump and was able to pump 1/4 oz for her. She sucked it down according to my husband. She was hungry. He stayed with her and kept the nurses from giving her formula or a paci.
She came up with me after her NICU stay and her first few nursings were great! She pee'd and poo'd just like she was supposed to. Then she went on a 14 hour nursing stike. During that strike, I requested to see the LC who told me that I didn't need to pump, just keep trying to get her to nurse. Oh, I wish I hadn't listened to her. Finally, the night nurse got us nursing, with a nipple shield.
She was born on a Saturday and we were released Monday. Not bad considering I had a c-section and standard stay is 5 days. The OB didn't even fight me on going home. We saw an LC on the way home from the hospital who helped us with latching. I nursed her around the clock for days and at 4 days old, she had lost 10% of her body weight and wasn't peeing. That was our first bottle of formula (2oz). I cried when I fed it to her. It was wrong, not how it was supposed to happen. I got a hospital grade pump, started pumping and taking herbs and domperidone. I started giving her whatever I pumped with a dropper.
Around 3 weeks, my milk supply seemed to have increased. She was peeing and everything. Then the Saturday she turned 3 weeks old, she spiked a fever of 103.6. She had a huge mass on her right breast. We rushed her to the peds hospital where they gave her an IV, a spinal and admitted us for 3 days. Nursing around an IV is not fun. Crash stopping domperidone and herbs is death to a supply. I developed severe yeast from her antibiotics. The hospital LC (yup, I asked for one there too, along with a pump) said it was one of the worst cases she had seen in a long time. It was awful to breastfeed through it. It got to where I couldn't nurse the one side at all. I pumped and nursed and bottle fed her the pumped milk. She was 8lbs when we got to the hospital... She was 7lbs 4oz when we left.
At her one month well baby, she was still under her birth weight. I had frozen milk in my freezer from a friend of ours so I started supplementing with bottles after nursings. I was blessed with a lot of milk from a friend through LLL and was able to supplement for a bit with that. Around this time, my LC found that Bella had a severe type 4 tongue tie. That explained everything. The weight loss, the drop in my supply... All of it. It was corrected at 5.5 weeks with a trip to NY to see a specialist. My supply was already severely compromised.
I had given up and resorted to EPing with my pittiful supply. I found milkshare and started posting asking for donations to make up my difference. I met a local mom who was gracious enough to share some milk with me and a lact-aid supplemental nurser. She helped us get set up, get baby latched and for the first time, my baby was happy and nursing. I could've cried.
It's been a rough struggle. I've bounced between EPing and breastfeeding. I've given up a few times. But I'm glad to say that I've stuck it out and am breastfeeding my baby with the help of donor milk. She's been lucky enough to have less than 6oz of formula in her life. And I cry over those oz but I didn't know about milk sharing then. I did the best I could. I stuck through it and with help of a perfect stranger, I'm breastfeeding my daughter. It's not ideal... There are still days where I wonder if it had been easier to just bottle feed. But then she pops off and gives me this grin and I know I made the right choice. I know I'm doing the best I can and my baby is getting so much good milk... Not just from me but from all of our donors too. I joke that I have the healthiest baby on the block... She's got so many different antibodies running through her from our various donors. Some people think milk sharing is gross, unsafe and a waste of time. My mom has expressed her concerns about what I could be exposing my baby to.
Well, if you've made it through my novel, you deserve a huge hug!
Thank you for letting me share my story. I'm glad to be a part of a place where people are like me and understand the challenges that can come with breastfeeding. Those with easy or perfect breastfeeding relationships can't understand on the same level.
I know I'm so glad I didn't give up, even though I have to supplement as well.
