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Finding the humor in breastfeeding.

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Today I earned my golden boobs!

My little birthday boy has nursed for an entire year. At around nine months I was so fed up and ready to quit. I'm happy that I hung in there until now, and we're taking it one day at a time at this point. Hang in there ladies. I utterly failed at nursing my first, but my second baby nursed for a year and onward.

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This pretty much nailed it.

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Gonna get on my soap box here. Why do they get away with charging $80 for one bra? Motherhood Maternity didn't even have my size. Apparently a 34E is too unusual for them to carry. The bras I did buy are looking ragged by the one year mark, and only two of them have working clasps. -.- My sleep bras' elastic have given out at this point.

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My Breastfeeding Journey, Part 1

I want to share with you the journey of breastfeeding my first son E, who is now about to be three years old. This is a story of hardship, confusion, frustration, and feelings of failing miserably. If I only knew then what I know now. Of course.

My little E was born on a Monday at a hospital in Phoenix, AZ. I had agreed to an induction from my OB, who wanted to do it at 39 weeks, but I managed to push it back. And then the hospital had no room for me on that day, so I waited an additional two days. I was admitted to this hospital and they started all manor of methods to get him out, including cervidil and prostoglandin gel, and finally pitocin. I was on pitocin for 12 hours with almost no change to my cervix, and the nurses were talking about sending me home, when my water broke and labor finally started. It was a full 24 hours later that my son was born. The whole experience left me a bit traumatized and regretful of my ignorance going into the situation. They cleaned my baby and weighed him, wrapped him up, and handed him to me. I fell in love.

At eight pounds and one ounce, and twenty-one inches long, he was a big bigger than I had anticipated, but absolutely perfect. Nurses busied themselves cleaning up the birthing room and preparing to move us to recovery. One of the nurses eventually came over and asked me how I wanted to feed him. I had taken a LLL breastfeeding course prior to birth, so that was my preferred method. She made an awkward face as she began trying to instruct me on how to get my baby to latch. He didn't seem too interested at first, and we had to keep trying, squirting milk into his mouth to get him to suck. Finally he latched. What a bizarre feeling. They wheeled us off to the recovery suite, where I continued trying to get my baby to nurse. What he didn't know was that I had never done this before, and every nurse that walked in had something different to say. I asked repeatedly for a lactation consultant to visit me, but she was too busy and never came. I struggled onward alone, accepting formula for him when the nurses offered. They could see my frustration. Due to blood loss on my part, we stayed in the hospital three days after his birth.

At his first checkup, he had not  yet regained his birth weight, but the pediatrician did not seem concerned. I felt like a blind woman stumbling around in the darkness, trying to take care of an infant, constantly wondering if all his little expressions and sounds were normal. By two weeks he had still not quite gotten back to birth weight, but he was very close. His mild jaundice cleared up, and my pediatrician assured me he was perfect.

At two months I had a long list of questions for my pediatrician. I continued breastfeeding and also offering formula when I felt too frustrated. My nipple started to bleed and the pain was unbearable at times. I cast around my sleep deprived brain to remember the tips I had learned at the class. Roll the nipple into the mouth. If it hurts, you're doing it wrong. Make sure the lips are flipped outward. We seemed to be doing all right though. He was up to twelve pounds at this appointment, and over 23 inches. My pediatrician continued to tell me he was perfect. I asked why he spit up so much, and was told he was just a happy spitter. I asked why he would sometimes make this raspy breathing sound after meals. No idea, probably normal, he said. We went home and continued on with life.

At four months he only weighed 13 pounds. In two months he had only gained one pound. His percentile dropped from 36th to 10th. My pediatrician told me he looked perfect. We were still stumbling along with breastfeeding, and at this point I had eliminated formula from his diet. I was eager to start feeding him solids, but the pediatrician recommended I hold off until six months. I had a few more questions. Why did my baby cry so frequently? Why did he arch his back or raise his hands over his head all the time? Why couldn't I get him to sleep? Why did he often choke while eating? All normal baby behavior. I was just a new and inexperienced parent. He continued to make the wheezing noise after eating. And he looked so skinny.

At five months, I took my son to the nearest children's hospital, Banner Thunderbird. His wheezing was really bothering me. They looked at him, x-rayed his chest, and sent us home. Nothing unusual at all. I felt frustrated and fed up with struggling to nurse this baby, who vomited everything he ate and cried constantly. Under pressure from my friends, I decided to switch back to formula, and gradually started to wean.

Just before E turned six months old, I woke up one morning. It was later than usual for me to wake up. I heard an odd sound over the baby monitor, and I knew something was wrong. I ran to his room and nearly burst into tears. My baby lay in his bed, motionless, with a distant glazed expression, while his face began to turn blue. I panicked, pushing on his chest and picking him up to firmly pat his back. He gasped in a breath and began crying. I ran to the car and carefully strapped him into his seat, jumped in the driver's seat, and sped down the road at full speed. I called my husband's work on the way, asking to speak to him and letting him know that E had stopped breathing and that I was taking him to Phoenix Children's. Then I called my best friend to let her know too. I was shocked at how fast my little camry could go, and thanked God for the car pool lane on the I-10. I made a 45 minute drive in 25 minutes.

E had another breathing episode in the ER after a nurse had examined him. I threw open the door and screamed frantically for people to come, and nurses rushed into the room. They began the admitting process. We stayed in the ER for five hours waiting for a room. They fitted him with an IV and began tests, doing an EEG and hooking him up to an apnea monitor. My husband arrived from work, and a couple of my friends came. Finally we got to our room. The doctors wanted to observe him having an episode again, so we waited. Eventually we realized they were connected to his eating. I tried to breastfeed him, but he choked horribly and stopped breathing again. They immediately said he would have to go on all formula, and started thickening it with rice cereal. He drank the bottles slowly and his episodes decreased.

He underwent an upper GI test and barium swallow test. He drank the barium liquid as if he were starving, and the observed him aspirating up to nectar consistency. We then had to thicken all of his formula to honey consistency. He also went on zantac for reflux, which I believe caused his dysphagia in the first place. We couldn't afford the expensive thickener he needed, and so we used rice cereal. We had to carefully measure each scoop, four tablespoons per ounce of formula, every single bottle.More than a half hour would pass and he would still not be done eating. But he gained three pounds, putting him in the middle of the charts. Our breastfeeding days were over.

Sometimes I look back on this time in my son's life and regret most of the decisions I made. I could have breastfed longer. I could have pumped and found ways to buy the Simply Thick and thicken my pumped milk. I could have refused formula at the hospital, and maybe his reflux wouldn't have been so bad. I should have made the pediatrician listen to me and treat him sooner. But my son is absolutely amazing. He is so smart, his brain blows me away every day. I wouldn't change a thing about him. I just hate that my breastfeeding journey had to be a failure and a learning experience instead of a success story.

Soon I'll post my journey with my second son, which was also fraught with frustrations and failures, but is ultimately a success. He will be one in March and we are still going strong. It can be done. 

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#ouch #niplash #breastfeeding probs

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But it's all worth it. :)

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This is what kellymom has to say about foremilk and hindmilk. I generally consider kellymom to be the breastfeeding bible. It always lists outside sources as well if you want to check the info for yourself.

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10 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Breastfeeding

You don't always hear people say how hard it is to breastfeed. But it is. It's hard. Those first few weeks or even months can be a battle, and it seems like no one wants to tell us because they think they'll scare us away. I think they underestimate us, and I think the denial of the challenges of breastfeeding are the real problem. If you bring your baby into the world thinking nursing is going to be dreamy and easy, and you're met with reality at 3AM when you've had about five hours of sleep the entire week...well, it's a shock. Now my baby is eight months old, and for the most part breastfeeding is pretty easy these days, but we had a rough start, as many others do. So here are ten things I wish someone had told me about breastfeeding, BEFORE I had my baby.

Your nipples are going to hurt. It drives me crazy when LCs are always spouting off how breastfeeding isn't supposed to hurt, and if it is, you're doing it wrong. Well, I'm here to tell you that you can do everything right, and it will still hurt. The absolute best things I have found to combat nipple pain is 100% pure lanolin, Earth Mama Angel Baby Natural Nipple Butter (I alternate the two), Medela's gel soothies, and a properly fitting bra. I would encourage you to buy some bras that fit you as soon as your milk comes in, and once your supply settles, go back and buy a couple more that fit. Your breast size will change, and you may even lose quite a bit of weight in the first month. I went from a 36F to a 32DD after my supply settled, at around 6 weeks postpartum. 

You don't have to switch sides at every feeding. This is another misconception that seems to be pretty widespread. Try nursing on one side until your baby is satisfied, and he/she will unlatch, and then switch. If your baby doesn't unlatch, don't unlatch them. The only time I would unlatch baby is when he was in a deep sleep and I wanted to lay him down in his bed. If you switch sides too often, you may witness a frothy green poo in baby's diapers, which may mean he/she is getting too much foremilk. If you let baby completely finish one side before switching to the other, baby will get the fattier hindmilk. 

Your baby may want to nurse. All. Day. And that's NORMAL. There will be days or even weeks where you seem to be glued to your couch with a baby on your boob. It's normal. Keep in mind that your tiny human is brand new to this world, and you, Mommy, are your baby's greatest source of comfort. You have a life that is solely dependent upon you for survival, and it is human instinct to want to be close to mommy. You are protector, giver of love, you smell amazing, and you keep baby's belly full. So what if you let a few chores go? In a few months your newborn will sit up, crawl, walk, run, talk, sleep in his/her own bed, go off to college...etc. In a few short months you will look back at pictures of your tiny baby and miss every moment. When you're old, you will never remember what chores didn't get done. You will remember rocking your baby to sleep. 

Your milk supply is fine. As long as your baby is wetting enough diapers and gaining weight, your supply is fine. Your baby may nurse all day and all night. Your baby may fuss and cry more often. He/she may fuss and cry every day from 5-8PM. Your baby may not poop for five days. Your baby may spit up what seems like truckloads of milk. Your baby may begin to nurse and suddenly pull off and fuss or cry. You may be pumping and suddenly find that you've only pumped four ounces instead of six. You may not be able to get anything to come out with a breast pump. But none of that means that you have low milk supply. 

Your baby probably won't sleep through the night any time soon. You may get lucky and have a baby that sleeps all night right away, and that's great. The rest of us are insanely jealous. That is, until the four month sleep regression rolls around. But breastfed babies digest milk more quickly than formula fed babies, and therefore they get hungry more often. Including at night. My oldest son began sleeping through the night a few nights a week at five months old, and my youngest began sleeping all night at seven months old, but every now and then he will wake up at 5AM. My good friend's two year just recently began sleeping through the night. All of this is normal, and it's the reality of having a baby. You will get less sleep. Life will change. But it's just a short time in your child's life. It will pass.

Breastfed babies are difficult to get on a "schedule." This will drive some of you crazy, but you've got to let it go. I have attempted twice to put an exclusively breastfed infant on one of these infamous feeding schedules, and found it to be impossible. Sometimes my baby slept for two hours, sometimes for forty-five minutes. Sometimes he wanted to eat every thirty minutes, or not for three hours. He was impossible to predict. I gave up. But again, this is the reality of having a baby. You cannot fit your child into your old schedule. Your child now dictates your schedule. Society seems to hold disdain for letting your baby decide when he or she wants to eat, but for crying out loud, they're babies. They cannot lie or manipulate you. They are hungry when they're hungry. Trying to schedule when they eat and sleep is just going to give you a headache. As baby gets older, you may notice a pattern of eating and sleeping. At one month old I established a bedtime routine for my kids, and at six months I put them on a "schedule" that suited their needs. But ultimately they decided what that schedule would look like.

Don't compare your breastfed baby to formula fed babies. Try not to compare your child to other children in any case, but I know it's difficult. However, comparing your breastfed baby to formula fed babies is impossible. They have different growth patterns and feeding habits. Formula takes longer for a baby to digest than breastmilk, and formula fed babies are often on "schedules" of eating every 3-4 hours. But newborn breastfed infants will likely want to nurse more often than this, for hunger or comfort or anything else.

Studies show that breastfed babies cry or are more irritable than formula fed babies. This too is normal. This crying and fussiness is not a sign of distress or hunger. Researchers believe that this is just a normal part of babyhood, and that babies fed formula cry less because they are not allowed to feel hunger or are overfed. A breastfed baby that cries may just want mommy for comfort. This is normal. Research shows that babies need your comfort and love, and they need to be close to you. Understand that your baby may cry more, but breastmilk is still, and always will be, the best possible nutrition for your child.

Don't be afraid to nurse in public. I felt very anxious and self conscious about nursing my first child in public places. I always went to a private room or hid behind something, and of course covered with blankets and capes. I still use a cover, but I will never breastfeed in a bathroom again. You shouldn't either. Your baby deserves to eat wherever, whenever, just like a bottle fed baby. There's no shame or embarrassment in that. Except in rare cases, no one else is really paying attention to what you're doing anyway. If anyone does have a rude comment, don't let that deter you. The more we nurse in public, the more people will become familiar with it, and the more it will become normal. 

Breastfeeding is more than just feeding your baby. You're providing comfort, pain relief, reassurance, stress relief, social interaction, visual development, nurturing, protection during illness, and reducing the risk of SIDS. Breastfeeding increases the release of oxytocin in both you and baby. You reduce your risk of breast cancer, and your child may enjoy lower blood pressure and healthier arteries throughout life. And once you get past these difficult first weeks, breastfeeding is a breeze. It really is dreamy and easy. Fewer dishes, fewer things to remember to pack in your diaper bag, fewer hassles in the middle of the night. And an immense amount of benefits for your child, for life.

I hope this list didn't scare you away, like some of the experts seem to think. The reality is that having a baby isn't easy, and breastfeeding can be difficult at first, especially when you don't have adequate support. I had no idea what challenges I would face when I began, but I also never knew the real benefits I was providing until much later, and something other than "breast is best" would've been more encouraging. But everything here is the honest truth, from a mom of two, and I wish you the best on your breastfeeding journey.

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