Yup, I'm writing a post about breastfeeding. This may be TMI for some; however, inspired by this post on one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, I decided to take a few moments to document my experience over the past 8 months. My initial experience with breastfeeding was not a great one. I had a few issues that arose in the first few weeks and continued on for the next two months; however, I didn't give up and am extremely grateful and proud that I was able to nurse for 8 months. Overall, it was a wonderful experience and it gave me 8 precious months of bonding with my daughter that I'll cherish forever.
While I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to breastfeed once the little babe made her debut. My mom breastfed my brother and I, and she's never been shy about telling me the benefits of it all. My plans to have a natural labor, with medication mind you, didn't go as planned. I ended up with a c-section after an inability to progress after 27 hours of labor. Completely exhausted, feeling like I couldn't breathe from the epidural, and laid out on a bed with a 6 inch incision wasn't the ideal first experience to nurse my newborn daughter. Despite it not being as "perfect" as I had hoped, I had a starving 8.8 lb baby in my arms who didn't care how I felt or where we were. She just wanted to eat!
It all started off okay, though having the c-section made it difficult to nurse at first. I had to use the football position to nurse Emma at first because any other position put too much pressure on my incision. In the hospital, I had a few incredibly frustrating moments with nursing. Emma had a lot of trouble latching on so after a few crying episodes (I was crying, not her), the nurses finally searched the hospital and found a nipple shield for me to use to help her with the latch. It worked but was very painful. Later on, as in a few weeks (!) later, I found out that the shield was the wrong size and it had caused little cuts and cracks around my nipples which bled. Yeah....ouch. :-( I now knew why every time Emma latched on, it brought tears to my eyes. Breastfeeding definitely hurts a little at first but there just shouldn't be any waterworks unless it's from your raging horomones...and believe me, I definitely had those!
My milk didn't come in for about 5 days so I had to supplement with some formula though it didn't agree with Emma. Once my milk came in, we were good to go! The shield worked out great but it was extremely messy and every time I tried to nurse without it, Emma couldn't latch on and we would both cry. It was quite the emotional rollercoaster. After 4 weeks, I went to lactation at the hospital to get a weight check on Emma to make sure she was getting enough from me. My left side didn't seem to be producing as much as it was and I was worried about it drying up. I was also looking for some help to stop using the shield. Turns out, all I had to do was switch up my feeding position and voila, no more shield! I did, however, discover that my left side was indeed not producing as much as my right side. This is quite normal but after a few more weeks, my supply on my left side continued to diminish and by the time Emma was 10 weeks old, I had to let it dry up completely. I could only pump 1/2 oz a day from my left at this point and Emma would only nurse on my left for a few minutes. As a comparison, I could pump 5-6 oz from my right in half the time it took to get 1/2 oz from my left.
In addition to drying up my left side, I discovered that Emma had developed thrush. This is a type of yeast that gets in the baby's mouth from nursing. I had no clue how I got it and transferred it to her but thinking back, I think it must have been from using the nipple shield. Emma developed the thrush by her one month appointment. She was put on some medicine for it but we kept passing the infection back and forth to one another through my milk. The thrush got into my milk ducts and caused shooting pains through my breast. It was so painful and I ended up having to be own advocate. The dr told me to use gentian violet which ended up staining Emma's lips purple. Yes, it killed the yeast temporarily but it was extremely messy and I wasn't about to take my two month old daughter out of the house with purple all over her face. After discontinuing the gentian violet, the thrush quickly returned and I had to call the dr and ask for a specific antibiotic I knew would take care of it (thanks to a friend's advice). After two doses of the antibiotic, the thrush finally disappeared and I was able to continue to nursing.
During the thrush episode, I was in such pain once it got into my milk ducts that I decided to start weaning Emma. This was the hardest decision for me to make. I cried...a lot. I cried on the phone to my mom. I cried in my husband's arms. I spent many days and sleepless nights debating this. If you've nursed a child and eventually weaned or tried to nurse and been unable, you can understand the emotional pain and sadness this causes a mother. As happy as I was to have nursed Emma exclusively for 10 weeks, I wanted so badly to continue until she was a year old. I felt like a failure. I was now nursing Emma on just my right side and it seemed to be sustaining her just fine but with the pain I was experiencing, I felt I had no choice but to start her on formula.
Thankfully a few weeks later, the antiobiotics helped get rid of the infection but I had already started Emma on one bottle of formula a day. I decided to stick with the formula. I noticed that she wasn't spitting up as much and it was nice to get a little break from nursing all day. As time went on, I continued to slowly wean Emma from breastmilk. I gradually started replacing one nursing session with a bottle of formula and by 6 months, I was down to 3 nursing sessions per day as compared to the 5-6 I was doing. With the formula, Emma started eating every 3-4 hours. When I nursed, she would eat every 2-3 hours. When Emma turned 6 months old, I noticed that she seemed hungrier and wasn't as satisfied after I nursed her. Starting her on purees didn't seem to help. I had a feeling that my breastmilk supply was starting to decrease so I made the hard decision to begin the process of full weaning. When my left side dried up, I told myself I would nurse as long as my supply allowed and now, it was time.
Emma turned 8 months old on Sunday, July 24th. It was the first day she was given formula for all of her feedings. I was dreading the day when I would have to stop nursing, mostly because I knew that I hadn't lasted as long as I had wanted to. I had wanted to give Emma the best and I believed that breastmilk was the best thing for her for as long as I was able. I miss the convenience of nursing and the bond it had given me with my daughter. Though it didn't last as long as I would have liked, I am extremely grateful and blessed that I was able to nurse for 8 months.
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