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| My sweet post-delivery 'do, and sweet, sweet baby boy. |
As a new mom coming off of a recent
pregnancy, I know “emotional” and “hormonal” all too well. With baby number one
in the womb, it was the diet dr. pepper my wonderful husband (we’ll call him
Mountain Man) so lovingly went out and retrieved for me in lieu of the diet
coke I was craving (because I changed my mind and forgot to notify him) that
elicited my tears. Or my ever-shrinking closet (or my growing uterus, though I
prefer to think of it as the former). Or the never-ending battle between my
toothbrush and my gag reflex. Or more seriously, failing my glucose tests and
having to deal with gestational diabetes (an entirely different post all
together). Post-partum, it was my jeans that to this day will not fit over my
new momma-hips, or the overwhelming sense of “now what?” The day we carried
Frank into our home, we had several guests come to see him. I took an
“I’m-overwhelmed!”-shower, and cried. However, the tears I shed over these
things are just a drop in the bucket compared to the way attempting to
breastfeed violently rocked my world.
Breastfeeding has been the culprit
in almost every breakdown I have had since becoming a mother. We’ll start from
the very beginning. I always knew I would breastfeed my children. Okay, okay.
Not always, but definitely from the day I began seriously thinking about
procreating. I read all of the
literature, and frequented the La Leche League website obsessively. I skipped
over the “Bottle Feeding” section of my pregnancy book. Once little Frank was
born and they placed him on my chest, I was beyond exhausted from umpteen hours
of labor and three of straight pushing. However, he latched on like a champ. My
very first breastfeeding experience was wonderful. It was not painful. It was
so easy and came naturally to both of us. Overnight, Frank was very sleepy. I
struggled with holding him properly, achieving a good latch. Once I got him on,
he would fall asleep, or eat for maybe two minutes before breaking the latch.
“Oh, that’s normal. He will eat better tomorrow,” the nurses told me. Well, not
really. We had off and on success. At one point, I remember wishing for an
excuse to quit, but stuck it out. Just after lunchtime two days later, we
were on our way home.
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| Mountain Man and Baby Frank moments after birth. |
Frank spent the first several hours
in his bassinet, snoozing away. I was worried and nervous because I couldn’t
get him to wake up to eat, and of course, hormonal from the sudden lack of
hormones pumping through my system. It took the entire first week (navigating around
a crazy number of pediatrician appointments) to get my pillow-stacking
technique down so that he was propped up just right. At our first appointment,
our pediatrician was concerned about Frank’s weight. On day three? How would we
know? After a few days, my milk had still not forcefully come in as I had
expected it to, no engorgement to speak of. I reluctantly started to supplement
formula at the doctor’s suggestion.
Supplementing was a struggle. I
wanted my sweet baby to get everything he needed. I desperately wanted to be
able to provide everything he needed from my body. After all, formula was the
devil’s milk, wasn’t it? The guilt I felt giving him formula was immense. I
hadn’t even given him a pacifier yet, and now I have to give him a bottle? Will
he still latch after using an artificial nipple? Turns out, he did just fine. He
would only take up to an ounce of formula after each feeding, and he was
finally gaining weight the way the pediatrician thought he should have been. So
I thought, “let’s build up momma’s milk supply!” I bought a breast pump. We
holed up in the house and breastfed and pumped around the clock. Every two
hours. Every hour. Cluster feeds. Breastfeeding all night. All day. Pumping after
every feeding. This went on for almost two weeks. I slowly got rid of the
formula. I felt so good knowing that I was exclusively breastfeeding. I had
accomplished the thing I wanted most from being a mom! I was invincible. I was
doing what was best for my baby. Frank started outgrowing his newborn clothes.
He had the cutest, chunky, little thighs. And I was supermom.
This is the part of the story where reality hits me square
between the eyes something fierce.
Things took a turn for the worse. Frank’s
clothes got a little loose. His arms started to look thin. I scoured the
internet for a sign that this was normal. I would show Mountain Man, “Look,
this random forum mom’s baby’s arms look just like Frank’s. She is
exclusively breastfeeding too. Look at this article about baby milestones.” He
was having plenty of wet diapers. He had several dirty ones. He ate for a
normal amount of time. His latch was fantastic. He burped. He spit up. His
nails were growing like crazy. He was growing in length. But he was shrinking
everywhere else.
I’m not sure if it was the messed
up circumcision, or the letter saying she was moving away to California, but we
chose to end our relationship with our first pick for Frank’s doctor. We ended
up in a pediatrician’s office almost an hour away where I found out Frank was
not just not gaining weight, he was losing weight. My mother-in-law, who had
driven us to the appointment, and I were sent off to Children’s Medical Center
in Dallas for the second time (the first time due to the circumcision issue). Let
me add here that flu season was in full swing, and there was a line of families
out the door and through the halls waiting for the ER. We were finally called
back and they started running tests. Mountain Man made it to the hospital.
I retold our story to every nurse,
resident, specialist, doctor etc… that came our way. They
watched me nurse Frank. Maybe he wasn’t absorbing nutrients properly. Maybe he
has a hyper-metabolism. Could be gastrointestinal. Maybe something else is
going on. Some count of something is elevated and it shouldn’t be. We are
admitting you.
It was almost midnight when we got to our
room. I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude toward
my mother-in-law for sticking it out with me. They had me pump straight away,
and only bottle feed Frank for an “accurate” measure (even though no pump is as
efficient as a baby) of how much milk he is getting. Then, they brought in
bottles of formula that I fed to my baby and put him back in his enormous
hospital crib to sleep. He’d had a hard day. I stayed up late to pump, and
pumped a beautiful 2 ounces. The nurse told me that she would return with
labels for my liquid gold, I mean milk, and she would take it to a refrigerator.
Having been told this, I felt it safe to fall asleep. WRONG. When I woke up, I
see my pumped milk sitting where I left it. No labels in sight. What a four-letter-word,
son of a five-letter-word! The day-nurse explains to me that she has to throw
it away as it had been sitting out for three hours. This was hospital policy. I
cried. From then on out, I only pumped up to an ounce at a time. I’m sure
stress, and anger, played a part in my low supply while we were there. It
didn’t get any better.
We went through several formulas
before finding one that didn’t come spewing back out of baby Frank. On the
third day, they finally allowed me to breastfeed. He wouldn’t latch. We tried with
every feeding. I would put him to my breast, and he would scream. My heart was
broken, and broke a little bit more each time he didn’t latch. I cried again. I
felt I had ultimately failed my baby. Did I try to do too much in those first
few weeks? Maybe I should have let the laundry go. I should have breastfed more
often, and then maybe my supply would be that of a normal person. I beat myself
up.
The end-of-the-world feeling slowly
started to loosen its reins. Baby Frank was gaining weight. He had just started
smiling. He was looking healthier by the hour. Besides a diagnosis of acid
reflux and a prescription for prevacid, nothing serious was wrong with him. My
milk supply was simply too low. He was burning more calories than he was taking
in. Frank is a mover, and breastfeeding itself burns calories. Formula was no longer the enemy. However, I
wasn’t giving up. Maybe I could pump enough for Frank to only have breast milk
someday. I was hopeful. I stayed with Frank in the hospital for four days. Mountain
Man had to work, but came to see us every night. He spent the night with us
that Friday, and we finally received the okay to go home early Saturday. We
almost spent Christmas in the hospital (phew!).
For a month, I pumped all day, and
with every night-feeding. I left family holiday festivities to hide in a back
bedroom and pump. My life revolved around pumping. The most I ever got was two
ounces. My supply never increased. It decreased. Frank latched once, but never
again. After battling for almost the first three months of his life, I
surrendered. I had lost. I packed up my pump and hid it deep in the closet.
I look back at photographs and
cannot believe how scrawny my poor baby looked. How I had not noticed sooner is
beyond me. I was so embarrassed to have let this happen. Maybe I was blinded by
my own overwhelming desire to successfully breastfeed. Maybe I stared at him
too often to notice it before it had gone too far. I couldn’t understand how I
could squirt Frank in the face and leak all over my clothes and not have enough
milk to nourish him. Today, he is outgrowing his three month sized clothes and
wearing size two diapers. He will be four months old in just a few weeks. He
laughs, coos, and holds his head up. He is my little chunky monkey, and the
happiest baby I have ever seen, with the cutest dimples.
I still find myself staring longingly
and very enviously at mothers who are breastfeeding their babies when our little
family ventures out. I still periodically leak through my clothes, which, let
me tell you, is so irritating. There will always be that nagging, little part
of my brain thinking maybe we didn’t try hard enough. But, the rational part of
me (that’s still inside there somewhere..) knows that landing us in the
hospital probably means we tried a little too hard. The guilt I felt from
failing at breastfeeding, coupled with the guilt I felt from my baby not
getting enough almost landed me into some hard post-partum depression. I don’t
know if I will attempt to breastfeed again with our future children. Not that I
want to waste everything we have learned in the first round. I suppose we will
just cross that bridge when we get to it.
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| Tummy Time, featuring Baby Frank. |
The week prior, I'd done everything I could to induce my own labor. I'd had weeks of off and on contractions, and one 2:00AM false alarm trip to the hospital. At 38 weeks pregnant, Mountain Man and I met up with some of our besties at Buffalo Wild Wings for a late dinner, and to catch the Mavs season opener. I thought surely I could spicy-food myself into labor. Nope. Surely I can get-overly-excited-at-basketball myself into labor. Double nope. The Monday before my appointment, I decided to try and put-up-the-Christmas-tree myself into labor. I busted out all of our holiday decorations and went to town. It took all day, I had to take several breaks for contractions. I even lost my mucus plug! But did I go into labor? Triple nope.
