If I Was a Cow, I'd Be Dinner

So all my life, I wanted to be a mommy (well, minus a couple years where the idea of an episiotomy made me want zero kids...).  And it was just a part of the plan that I would breast-feed.  For a number of reasons:  cheaper, bonding, healthier for the baby.

Life had other plans for me.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I'd gone to a lactation specialist to discuss ways I could prepare my body for breast-feeding.  Because of my hormone issues, I knew there was a possibility that breast-feeding would be difficult.  That I wouldn't produce enough.  But there was no way to know until I had a baby and was at that point.  So the lactation nurse gave me some tips to try once I was closer to my due date that would stimulate my body to produce and tell it, in essence, "get ready!"

I think it didn't help us that Lynnaea and I missed the "golden hour" right after she was born, since she had to be in the nursery.  But that may not have made that much of a difference for me anyway.  I was certainly nervous about the whole latching experience.  This is key to good nursing experiences, and I was afraid I would be clueless.  So once we had Lynnaea in the room with us, I talked with a lactation nurse at the hospital.  And then another one that night who brought us a breast pump.  And then another one the next day.  I was feeling confident that things would work.

But then Saturday, after we got home and I tried to feed her that night...  It was not so easy.  It was like we went in reverse.  It didn't help that my headaches were present if I wasn't laying down (and how do you lay flat and figure out breast-feeding?).  Plus my back was hurting really bad (I think a normal result of all the muscles I pulled while pushing during labor).  Things basically went from bad to worse as the days wore on.  It became apparent that the latching thing got harder and harder.  Lynnaea was crying all the time.  I was in tears constantly, feeling like I was failing my baby.  I felt like a horrible mother.  I was essentially starving my baby, because I couldn't figure out this breast-feeding thing.  By the time we went in for her well-check and another lactation visit, she was down 15% from her birth weight -- which is too much.  So we got set up with a supplemental system.  So what was happening was this:  I wasn't supplying enough for her, and it wasn't worth her effort, so she was less interested in latching on, and when I would try to feed her, she would just scream in frustration, and I would just cry.  So the nurse wanted to encourage her to see breast-feeding as a positive thing.  So rather than using bottles to supplement, we got this little system where we would tape a small tube to my breast and formula would flow through there and she would think she was getting it from me.

Plus we got a new routine.  I would feed her, then I would pump, then I would massage, and then I would pump again.  So basically all of this was about an hour.  The plan was to build my milk supply through these steps by telling my body, "Produce!  There's a baby to feed!"  Also, I started taking fenugreek capsules, which are supposed to help increase milk supply.  We started that on Tuesday evening.  I was supposed to see results in 2 to 3 days.  When I sat down on Saturday evening to do the pumping and ended up with a total of 1.4 mL (and Lynnaea was needing to eat about 35 mL per feeding), I got completely discouraged.  All that effort -- and for what?  I just cried and cried.  I felt trapped and tied to the breast pump with no progress.  I couldn't do it anymore.  It was like a glaring light was being shone on my failure as a mom.  So I fed Lynnaea through the tube one last time, and then Jeremy kept her while I went to the store and got bottles and nipples.  It was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders.  It's not what I had wanted.  But at least I didn't have to have my body's failure staring me in the face in that way.  At least I didn't have hope come crashing down every time I spent an hour pumping for, essentially, nothing. 

The irony is that that night was the first night I leaked milk.  Life is ironic that way.  And so I decided on Sunday that it wouldn't hurt anything for me to just feed her what I could and then give her a bottle.  So I did.  And Monday went back to the lactation lady.  I told her my experience, and she said that my body probably just doesn't have the necessary glandular tissue, but that by continuing to feed Lynnaea what I can, it could help increase my milk supply.  Plus it will help for future babies, since my body will be more likely to lay down more glandular tissue.  Plus this will help me be more comfortable with it for the future too.  And so Lynnaea will get a dose of good stuff (anti-bodies, etc) from me, and then her life-sustaining needs will come from the formula.  I am grateful everyone is very supportive of me doing it this way -- and so far, so good.  Lynnaea is still willing to nurse before taking a bottle, even though the bottle is much easier for her.

Yeah, it's not how I hoped it would be.  And if I was a cow, I'd be dinner, since I wouldn't be a milk producer ;)...  I just had to realize and accept that you can't always get what you want -- even when the desire is a good and righteous one.  I'm not sure what I am to learn from this experience, but I will say that I am so grateful that I live in a time when I have options to keep my baby alive.  At first, when I thought I wouldn't be breast-feeding at all, I had looked at nursing pads and started crying about the loss of what could have been.  Jeremy sweetly said, "At least we feel disappointed only in nursing pads and the loss of breast-feeding.  It would be so much worse if we were looking at an empty pack and play, because we didn't have a baby to put in it."  Oh how right he was.  Even typing that here makes me tear up.  Our baby is able to grow and be strong and healthy because we have access to formula.  And I am grateful for that.  She has regained her birth weight now -- and possibly surpassed it at this point.  Her little cheeks are chunky and so is her little tummy.  And we like it that way :).

She and Daddy were having a great conversation...

Part of Lynnaea's room.  I plan to put a family picture on the right side of the picture with blue.  The picture on the left is one of the Savior holding an infant.  And the big one in the middle is the poem I cross-stitched.  She isn't sleeping in there yet... We are keeping her in with us for the first 2 or 3 months.  But it's pretty much ready for her when she's ready for it :).