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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A sad smile as I remember it all

I've been meaning to write a post about my nursing experience for a while now. I might have to make it into two parts because there is a lot to tell. I feel like it has been such a wonderful experience, but it has sure had its fair share of ups and downs. Mostly I'm writing this so when baby two and maybe three comes along I can remember how it was with Lauren- the good, the bad, and the down right wonderful!

I guess I'll start at the beginning. When I was pregnant I had wanted to nurse my baby, for how long I was unsure, but I know that it was a hope of mine. I didn't want to get my hopes squished like a bug, so I kept telling myself that if something happened that didn't allow me to nurse- life would be just fine. I have had a few friends that really wanted to but for some reason or another it didn't work out for them. I understood that it wasn't a given.

But to prepare, Matt and I signed up for the breast feeding prep class the hospital offered. I chuckle as I remember that Saturday so vividly, since we got a flat tire on our way there. We got off the highway to check out the situation after our tire pressure light came on. I can still hear the "whooshing" when I got out of the car to check it out. LOL, so we had to turn around- driving with the tire flat most of the way home- to switch cars and show up late. I remember being eight months pregnant and holding onto the car like we were on a roller coaster and I was about to fall out. Matt was so calm and just drive us home. I promised the instructor that I wasn't using it as an excuse but we really indeed did get a flat tire on the way. Oh goodness- interesting how this road proved to have its fair share of bumps even before Lauren was born.

So then pop- out comes baby Lauren (lol, if it was just that easy). Lauren failed to latch while we were in the hospital. She was so tiny and she tried but just wasn't very successful. I asked the nurse to have the lactation consultant stop by and the nurse had me start pumping first thing to help my milk come in. The first lactation consultant was not a nice lady. I remember her taking Lauren and just repeatably pushing her onto me, a little more force was used that I felt necessary. She wasn't friendly or understanding at all- just grumpy. Lauren was just crying and crying and so was I. I was frustrated that it wasn't working and my baby wasn't getting feed- even though I know she really wouldn't have been getting much if anything at that point and she was fine. The lady finally stopped using bruit force and calmed me and Lauren down.

They had me continue to pump and I started getting the "liquid gold" as it is so fondly called. They had Matt and I put the liquid into a little plastic syringe looking thing, have her suck on our finger while pushing the liquid from the syringe into her mouth. I have put a picture below in case my description is a little confusing.

Daddy feeding Lauren with this crazy syringe
Then I asked again the second day at the hospital for a lactation consultant to come and help- praying it wasn't going to be the same lady. Thank the Lord it wasn't. This lady was sooo much sweeter and understanding. She was calming and friendly. She tried to help Lauren latch without much success though. I had asked the consultant the day prior about a breast shield and she said that it was something they used as a last resort. I asked on the second day for it as well. I had known about the breast shield because one of my friends, Ashley, had to use one with her first daughter. So after too different consultants Lauren still wasn't latching, I was pumping, and we were feeding her with the syringe.

We left the hospital and headed home when Lauren is less than 48 hours old (since she was born at 11:50 pm, we were sort of jipped a little) and she still isn't latching, but I'm trying at each nursing to get her to. They told us to wake her every three hours and feed her. So after getting home we spend the first night waking a sleeping baby, trying to get her to latch, which results in her crying and then I have to pump while she waits and then I feed her. It was a process that took almost an hour and then we'd be good for two hours and then we'd start all over again. My mom would assist me with all this during the day and then Matt had night duty.

By the Wednesday I was pumping way more milk than would fit in the syringe, but no one at the hospital told me that we should be feeding her whatever amount I was pumping- so we continued to do what they had instructed us, which was nurse her for 15 minutes on each side, then pump and feed her the syringe. Well if she had ever latched she would have been getting ample milk- but she wasn't so all she was getting was 2 cc of milk at each feeding. Instinct told me that wasn't enough. So I called the lactation consultant place on Wednesday and asked what I should do with the extra milk I was pumping. The lady told me to start storing it, when in hind sight I should have been feed it to the poor baby. But no one every told me and I was so tired and beat it never occurred to me.

Now looking back I feel awful because she wasn't eating anywhere near enough and became jaundice and dehydrated because of it. If I had seen the doctor on Thursday it might not have been as bad as it was, but that was Thanksgiving. So we continue this tedious task of every three hours trying to get her to latch- which she never did, pumping, and then feeding her the milk through the syringe until the pediatric appointment.

All of this changed on Friday, the day of our doctor appointment. Now Lauren was born the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We left the hospital on Tuesday. Normally you would head to the pediatrician on the second day of being home. Since that was Thanksgiving, we had to wait until Friday. That morning I was telling my mom how absolutely grateful I was that we were headed to the doctor because instinct told me this craziness were were doing with this stupid syringe just didn't feel right. We didn't have an appointment with a specific doctor because it was just an open day where you showed up and got who you got since it was the day after Thanksgiving. Thankfully when the nurse took us back she asked how everything was going and I said that Lauren was doing great but we were really struggling with nursing. She said that she would get Dr. "T" because she was great with nursing mothers.


Well Dr. T was an angel from heaven that God placed on this earth for Lauren and I. She is wonderful and I will forever love her for what I'm about to tell you because if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have been able to nurse my daughter- so Amen to God for his angels!
Lauren at her first doctors visit
Dr. T came in and she had me show her what I had been doing. I've never been so unshy in my life about showing a complete stranger my "private" parts. If this lady was going to help me I was going to do whatever needed to be done- I think it is one of those mother instincts. So I showed her how I was nursing and she wasn't latching. She checked her suck and said that it was great. I told her how we'd been feeding her. One of the first question then out of her mouth was if I'd tried a breast shield- I about had my eyes bug out of my head. I told her how I had asked twice at the hospital for one and they wouldn't give it to me. She said that she usually had some on hand but didn't at this office location, so she looked it up on Target's website and found they had some, so she sent Matt across the street to pick them up. In the mean time she gave us a small bottle of newborn formula to give Lauren- which that little girl just started sucking down because she was so hungry!

Matt came back within ten minutes, we were nervous that since it was "Black Friday" it would take a while, and we put it on and my daughters eyes lite up. She just went to town and nursed like she had been longing for this moment all her life (a whole four days, hehe). I was so happy and angry. Happy that she was nursing, but angry that she had been under feed because the stupid lactation consultants could have prevented those four days of pain and anguish if they weren't so - hum how do I put this- open to the fact that nursing with help is better than not nursing at all.

I sure left that appointment high on life. Things became so much better after that. We were still having to wake her at night because she hadn't regained her birth weight yet (she was no where close with the little food that she was getting). We hit another bump in the road when she wasn't latching right because she would get her tongue all wrong and milk would be everywhere. Now mind you I was pumping after nursing still- and I eventually did that less and when I stopped pumping my supply went down. I was all nervous about that. But another friend and angel of God told me about the "Mother's Milk" Tea. So I started drinking that, which I continued for the next six months.

We eventually got the hang of it and had a nursing schedule of nursing for 30 minutes (15 on each side) every three hours. It was a heaven sent once she gained her birth weight back and we didn't have to wake her at night. She was, and still is, a good sleeper. It wasn't long after we stopped waking her that she was moved into her crib to sleep.

At around three months I headed back to work. Our routine at that point was me waking her up to nurse at 5 am. Then I would pump her first bottle. I would pump twice at work- once when my students had specials (10:30) and then again at the end of the day (3:30). I would come home and nurse her at 5 and again at 8:30-9. She would get three bottles of expressed milk during the day. Since I pumped so much when I was on maternity leave and then twice while at work there was a never ending supply for the sitter to give her.

Once she turned six and a half months old and I was done working, our schedule changed again. I stopped pumping (woohoo!) and we started waking her up at 7 and nursing then. I had NO desire to continue to wake at 5 am. She would nurse at 7, 9:30, 12:30, 2:30, 5:30, and again at 9:30. I moved the night feeding back so she would sleep longer in the morning. She was also able to nurse more effectively and get her fill in just 20 minutes. I felt like I was winning the lottery. Ten minutes on each side made the process seem so much faster and I enjoyed it more.

Then at around seven and a half, eight months she dropped the 9:30 feeding. She was more interested in napping/sleeping than eating. At about eight and a half, nine months she dropped the 2:30 feeding. Again she wasn't eating well at that feeding and if she did her 5 o'clock feeding was horrid, but once I dropped that one she ate just fine each day at 4. So now at ten months old, her schedule is 20 minutes (10 on each side) at 7, 11, 4, and 9:30.

The next thing I plan on doing is dropping her nursing at 11 and giving her expressed milk I have saved up in a sippy cup. I've been giving her water in a sippy cup to "train" her how to use it. I have so much milk stored that it will go bad if I don't use it up, so I'm sad about nursing even less, but I need to get a grip and start letting her grow up.

Wow, to say this is a long post is an understatement, but I just wanted to get it all down before I forgot the story. It feels like forever ago that I was experiencing it all and I know it won't be long before I can't quite remember all the details. Just glad that I was afforded the opportunity to do this for my daughter for as long as I have. Right now my plan is to ween her by her first birthday. I'll keep you posted on how that works out for us.

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