Our Breastfeeding Story

I wrote this story out a long time ago after being asked time and time again to share it on various message boards where I provided support to moms that went through the same breastfeeding difficulties that I did with my first child. I just realized that I never shared it on my blog and thought I would post it to share with all of you why breastfeeding has become so important to me.

Perhaps if it had been easy for me, it would just have been a way of feeding my child like it is for many others perhaps. But for me, it is one of the things I worked hardest at in my life, one of the accomplishments I am most proud of, and an important investment in my child’s future.

Here’s the story:

Before my son was born, I promised myself I would not have specific expectations about who he would be or what he would do. I want my son to be able to chart his own course and do so with my support. The only expectation that I went into this with was that I would breastfeed. Of course, breast milk is best for the child, breastfeeding is cheap and convenient, and it allows for bonding between mother and child.

Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t as easy as that. Here’s a quick history of what we dealt with during the first months:

• First few days: Wouldn’t latch on in hospital, pediatrician on duty diagnosed tongue tie (ankyloglossia) and arranged for it to be clipped when he was two days old. Went home from hospital a few hours after the procedure, armed with a lactation aid to try to get him to breast.

• Week 1: Still not latching. At this point, my milk has come in, so I am pumping milk (unfortunately with an Avent Isis hand held pump because I was on maternity leave and couldn’t afford an electric pump at that point) and giving it to him using finger feeding or in attempts with the lactation aid. Later in the week, we try a nipple shield – he still doesn’t latch on.

• Week 2: I’m still pumping at this point, and LC suggests using orthodontic nipples to bring his tongue down and out and to continue suck training with the finger as much as possible. Also offering both breasts at each feeding (switching bottle for breast to see if he can be tricked into taking the breast).

• Week 3: Trying the nipple shield again, but he is not grabbing onto the breast, he is just grabbing the nipple. LC suggests that we make an appointment with Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist to have him assessed.

• Week 4: See my doctor to get a referral to ENT specialist. Still pumping, bottle feeding and trying breast.

• Week 5 and 6: Still pumping, bottle feeding and trying breast. Many moments of despair, doubt that it will ever work. Resigned to the fact that I will likely be exclusively pumping rather than ever nursing my child.

• Week 7: Finally! The appointment with the ENT specialist. She says that the tongue tie clipping wasn’t done properly the first time and that it had scarred over a bit. She re-clips the tongue tie. I try right away at each feeding to get him to latch on. He has limited success. He is latching, but not latching well. We keep trying and he gets better and better. I am thrilled that he is finally breastfeeding. I go out and buy more nursing bras and shirts.

• Week 8: Appointment with LC to see if we can fix the latch. Suddenly, he latches beautifully. My nipples are sore at this point, but I figure it is from all of the bad latches that we experienced while trying to get to the good latch. Towards the end of the week, my nipples are cracked and bleeding. I had been exclusively breastfeeding for 4 days, but I am in pain and he is spitting up blood. I see the LC (who says that the latch is good) and my doctor, who prescribes treatment for thrush.

• Week 9: Treating the thrush and breastfeeding when I can. When it is too painful, I pump and offer him that in a bottle. Try to offer him at least one breast per feeding. His latch is sometimes good, and sometimes not. When it is not, I take him off the breast and relatch him. I am pretty sure that he is not using his tongue properly, because despite a good looking latch, my nipples are still very sore and get worse with breastfeeding. He is also like a little snapping turtle. I have to fight to get enough breast into his mouth before he closes it.

• Week 10: My nipples and breasts are in pain during breastfeeding, while pumping (less so), and in between feedings. I am kept up at night sometimes by the pain. See my doctor again and she diagnoses mastitis. Start antibiotics for mastitis.

• Weeks 11 to 12: I pumped exclusively while letting the mastitis clear up and getting my supply up again (pumping every 2 hours or so around the clock) because my supply dipped to about 2/3 of what it should be. I unfortunately had to supplement with a bottle of formula a day for about a week because I wasn’t pumping enough.

• Around week 13: Finally found some Evenflo Ultra Elite nipples (the ones everyone was raving about for being the best ones for breastfed babies and that have since been discontinued unfortunately) on www.zooscape.com and ordered them. When they came, I really worked on his latch while he was nursing from the bottle. I made sure that he opened wide, his lower lip was curled out, and that his tongue was below the nipple. I also started getting him to nurse once per day and really working on the latch (it still hurt, so I didn’t want to push it).

• Weeks 14 and 15: I slowly started increasing the number of times per day that he nursed. I think in week 14 he nursed twice per day. Then in week 15 three times per day.

• Week 16+: Then finally on the weekend after week 15 I put away the pump and just nursed all weekend. It was great. I was a bit sore afterward, but I knew that my goal was in sight. I really kept working on the latch and despite all of that work, he always had a narrower latch than I liked.

We finally achieved success just before Christmas. My siggie on the breastfeeding support message boards had been “all I want for Christmas is a nursling” and I got my wish!. My little boy continued nursing until he was 2.5 years old and I was 7.5 months pregnant with my daughter. Considering the rough start we had, I think that is pretty good!

I owe a great deal of thanks to Paula (of Mother-2-Mother), Kelly (of kellymom.com) and Carol who provided me with a great deal of support and advice on the ivillage Breastfeeding message board back then, as well as the ladies on the ivillage Exclusively Pumping message board that helped me to see that there was another option if breastfeeding didn’t work out and that understood what I was going through when it looked like things wouldn’t work out.

Tagged as: Breastfeeding, exclusively pumping, lactation consultant, nipple shield, nursing, story, thanks, tongue tie