When you find out that you're pregnant, there are a million things that you automatically think about, such as do I use cloth diapers or disposables? When do we move baby to their own room? Do I breastfeed or bottle feed? When I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to try breastfeeding. I had images of it being fairly easy, even though I had heard it could be hard - I had friends and family who tried and it just didn't work. Nobody told me just how hard it would be.
Our son was born 6 weeks early. This meant that my milk was not ready to come out. I had to force my body to start producing it. The day after I had him, the NICU nurses encouraged me to start pumping and bringing them anything I got. So I started pumping, at first bringing them a drop or two, they called anything I got "liquid gold". Every 3 hours I would wake up (unless I was already awake) and pump, bringing them the liquid gold. I was so proud the first time I brought them a ml!
When I got discharged from the hospital, I went to stay with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend in the same city where our son was born so I could be close to him. I continued to pump every 3 hours, taking whatever milk I had to the hospital with me to give to him. It was exhausting, overwhelming, and painful. I wasn't sure how I was going to keep this up after we left and came back home, especially since the most I ever pumped was about 3-4 ozs (boy was I excited when that happened!). But I wanted to keep going since I wanted our son to have more breast milk than formula, which the nurses had been giving him to supplement what I was bringing in to feed him. This continued on for almost 4 weeks until we came home.
Two days before we were due to come home, I stayed in the hospital all day and night to be on call to feed him - called "on demand feeding" so I didn't pump in between feedings. I wanted him to have lots of milk. The day before we came home, I stayed in a room across the hall from the NICU for what they call "care by parent". This is like a trial run for what it would be like at home. The nurses come and check on you every so often to see how things are going and to make sure that the baby is doing okay. I didn't pump during this time either.
When we got home, things changed, for a day or 2 after, I didn't pump, whether I was too tired, overwhelmed, lazy, forgetful, I don't know, probably all of those. This turned out to be a big mistake. I would become engrossed in something and forget to pump. At night, I wanted to get as much sleep between my son's feedings as possible so I got lazy and didn't pump. Pretty soon I was sporadically pumping and I basically ended up back at square one with drops of milk.
Feelings of guilt spread through me, making me feel like the worst mom ever, even though the NICU nurses told me that if I ended up formula feeding him for whatever reason, that didn't make me a bad mom. I still cried anyway. Eventually, about a month ago, when our son was 3 months old, I made the decision to stop trying to pump - he wouldn't take the breast and I figured I was dried up (there wasn't really anything coming out), and formula feeding him worked best with our lives anyway. For a while I felt okay with my decision, backed up by a public health nurse saying that I was likely dried up and it wouldn't work.
A few days ago, for a reason I have yet to figure out, I decided to try hand expressing (which I have always found difficult). To my surprise, I had a couple droplets come out, which gave me hope that I may be able to re-lactate using the pump and Mother's Milk tea. So here I am, trying to re-lactate to give my son more breast milk and it's still a struggle. I'm still forgetful/lazy. I have decided this time that if it works, awesome, if it doesn't, it doesn't, at least he got a full month of breast milk to help with the immunity and other great benefits that breast milk has.
It's been a roller coaster for the past 4 months. I think that if our son hadn't had to come early, I would have been better prepared to take on the challenge of breastfeeding. As it stands now, when we have our next child, I will know what to do and be better prepared to dive headfirst in to breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is overwhelming, challenging, and rewarding. I would encourage other moms out there that are struggling with breastfeeding not to give up. There are support systems out there - like family and friends, the La Leche League, a public health nurse - they all have great resources to help you try to figure it out.
Until next time- happy breastfeeding!
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