[lucky 2]

Hi ,

A member recently suggested a thread for positve stories of breast feeding, a place to document the journey, from the beginning to the end of breast feeding or whatever part you want to share.

It could be pinned, or not, perhaps we can decide later.

Regards,

lucky 2
Moderator of the Breast feeding forum

[lucky 2]

I thought I'd go first, unless I'm too slow and someone else gets in first!

Dd was born at term after a normal vaginal birth (under epidural).
She was well and went on my chest, not moving from there until after her 1st feed.
I noticed she had quite a serious looking tongue tie as soon as she was born.
She had her first feed within the 1st hour with me sitting in bed with "dead" legs, but we did it. I can't remember much but I don't think it hurt and she fed for quite a while.
She continued to feed frequently and I did develop some minor nipple damage I presume was related to the tongue tie (because I know about attaching I think my did the best job possible in getting her on).
She developed some sort of twitching of her eyes, head and right arm after 24 hours and this needed to be investigated (Neurologist) but they really didn't understand and I was told it was likely the immature autonomic nervous system and it would pass in 3 weeks. Make that 3 months! It didn't interfere with bfing luckily, just interferred with me, ie anxiety etc.
She lost about 10% on day 3 and was very jaundiced and sleepy and she would not breast feed.
I continued to express by hand and cup feed her whatever amount I could get out (I reckon I hand expressed every 2 hours or so) and she lost more weight on day 5 but I still kept expressing by hand and she stopped losing weight from then on, but she didn't get back on the breast till day 10. I tried and electric pump but the milk wouldn't come out so I had to hand express until day10. My breasts were very firm and engorged but with all the hand expressing it eventually passed with breast feeding and mlk flow improving on day 10.
She continued to pinch my nipples and eventually I took her to a Dr who was also a LC and she snippled dd's tongue tie at 4 weeks.
We continued on with no more pinching.
From 3 weeks onwards she was screaming a lot during and after feeds, she would go on the breast and come off pretty quickly, crying, back arching, high pitched cry. This got worse and worse, she was so fussy I would switch her side to side (often 8 sides) to get her fed.
I got little sleep with lots of unsettledness and crying around the clock. At the same time I had increasing anxiety and fear of leaving the house.
At 10 weeks she was diagnosed with possible silent reflux (by a Neonatologist) and prescribed Zantac.
This helped but she continued to be a difficult feeder at times and I got worse with anxiety.
We went to a parenting centre at 3 months for both of us (4 night stay).
Breast feeding continued, she thrived on breast alone, I continued to deteriorate, eventually admitted to a Mother Baby Unit and started treatment for PND.
All through this I continued to bfed as per usual.
At 6 months she would feed 1-3 times at night and started solids with ease.

We got to 8.5 months and unknown to me she was sick with tonsillitis, both ears infected, cutting 4 teeth (top and bottom) from one feed to the next abruptly stopped breast feeding when her nose became blocked.
I took her to the Dr where she found the above and started her on her first course of antibiotics.
She never accepted my breasts again, I continued to try for about 6 weeks and in the meantime she needed to be fed.
She refused a bottle and teat (I wasted so much money and energy trying) and also refused a cup.
So I spoon fed her ebm mixed with solids and this is how I continued to feed her until she decided to start taking ebm in a cup at 10+ months.
I wasn't able to stop mixing ebm into her food until she hit 12 months as she still was pretty poor with the cup.
I continued to express and give her my milk until she got to 23months started to spit it out (on reflection it probably changed in taste, as production decreases the salt content rises).
The volumes ended up being 70mls per day with one expression daily and that was where we stopped at 23.5 months.
I never needed to express again.
That's my journey in a very big nutshell.

So much more happened because of my illhealth but I don't have a very clear memory of it all.
I just remembered I had very bad restless legs and sitting to breast feed was a kind of hell, especially at night.
This definitely added to my misery and I still feel annoyed that my very low iron level was not noted or treated after my blood was tested at 6 weeks postnatally.
It was discovered then but I have no memory of being informed and definitely was not treated.
Thank goodness I was taking a bfing supplement as it had a bit of iron, but not enough.
When I was hospitalised at 6 months the iron count was checked and it was extremely low and treated.
My restless leg symptoms went.
I can only wonder if I would have been as unwell emotionally if my physical problem was noted early and fixed. If you have never had restless legs (which ended up being arms too) then it would be hard to understand how miserable it is. Sitting still for 1/2 hour for a bf (dd was also quite leisurely) with restless legs was intensely uncomfortable.

I see I've written an essay but I feel somehow better after writing it down.

[lady lady]

WOW!!! You are amazing Lucky2!! Thank you so much for sharing your story ..... Your perseverance and willingness (particularly through your PND), is very inspirational !!!

I would often (and still do) read the BF threads when I was going through my own "early days" journey and get SO much inspiration to keep going.

I often look at how many people view a thread (as opposed to post) and think that so many people (like me) get ALOT out of it but just don't post ... Not sure why but it always makes us feel better to know someone else is expereiencing the same emotions and that we are not alone ...

Will be back to share my story/ journey ...

Not sure if it's possible but I think people often miss the "pinned" threads ... It would be nice to see a story or two on the first "current" BF page for a week or so before it get's pinned to the top ...

Thank you again for sharing

[TwiceTheWoman]

WOW - that is a fantastic story Lucky2, I love it ! What an inspiration you are - to go on expressing when your baby was so sick.
What stands out is your focus on what was best for your baby.
There's s much to be admired about all you did over those 2 years!

[meggs1]

What a good idea.

This is our story so far. I contracted shingles at 40 weeks. My birth plan went out the window, and I spent 2 days in maternity in an isolation room trying to go into labour, until they turned the drip on way high and I wound up having a cs under general. My son came out covered with spots and needed to be whisked off to children's hospital for IV antivirals for suspected chicken pox. I don't remember this, but in recovery I threw a tanty and so they helped me give a little feed there.

The kids hospital gave him 100 mls of formula (who knows why) which he promptly threw up.

The next 3 days were spent shuttling between hospitals, both of us officially in isolation, trying to work out how to breast feed with no LC support. Luckily my sister remembered enough from the antenatal video to get him attached by shoving his poor screaming little face into my boob. Poor little guy only got about 2 feeds a day for the first 3 days, but when I got him admitted back with me, we did some baby led attachment (which I saw in a DVD) and this helped us get back on track eventually, though we were about a week behind where we should have been.

My supply is still a bit dodgy but my boy has grown from 3.96kgs to 8.4 kgs at 3 months so there is milk in there somewhere. I'm taking motilitum and fenugreek tea. He still feeds very frequently which is driving me bonkers but I'm trying to push through without formula until he can start solids in a little while.

[Xiola]

These stories are great!

meggs1 - what a journey. Well done for keeping going and for his great growth so far!
lucky2 - congratulations for sticking with it, you've done really well!

OK, here is my story of feeding DD so far….

She was born via a natural drug free delivery at 37 weeks. The labour was induced as her growth had slowed dramatically (I’d been having monthly growth scans for various reasons). Compared to my boys she was very tiny (2.28kg) with a tiny little mouth and I had no idea of the breastfeeding struggles we’d have….

I’d fed my boys easily and successfully for over 15 months each. I knew how to attach her but due to her size, I just couldn’t get her to latch on. Her glucose levels were being monitored due to her size and as they dropped I was spoken to by the paediatrician about giving her some formula. I really didn’t want to go down that path so opted for some intravenous glucose instead (they told me the formula would be fed to her through a tube in her nose…I thought the glucose would be the lesser of two evils).

While her glucose levels stabilised easily I still couldn’t get her to attach. On day 2 I started expressing with an electric pump for 10 minutes each side every 2 hours to try and get my milk to come in. Meanwhile I still tried to get her to attach whenever she woke which was about every 3 hours. On day 3 I was flooded with sadness. My DS2 was struggling with me being away from home and sobbed when he had to leave the hospital after a visit and my DD was still in the special care nursery. I spoke (cried) to the LC who arranged for DD to come off the drip (she’d had stable glucose levels for a few hours) on the proviso that I cup feed her formula. I agreed although I was worried that this would eventually effect my breastfeeding her. My routine for the next 2 days involved pumping every 2 hours and feeding DD formula with either a supply line and my finger to suck on or through a cup every 3 hours. I’d also try and get her to attach before her feed but she was so tiny and got tired very quickly so was told to only try for 10 minutes. Honestly, it was so hard and frustrating that if it had have been my first baby and I’d never done it before I would have given up…..it seemed as though it would never work.

Most of the midwives agreed that it would take a lot of work to get her to attach, maybe even up to a month. I wasn’t sure I could keep up this routine 24 hours a day for that long. The LC felt that once I got home into my own environment things might be easier so they let me go home on day 5. That night was tough. I needed DH’s help to try and feed her with the supply line and the relentless pumping to keep my supply up was hard to fit in around her feeds. I dreaded DH going back to work knowing I couldn’t do all this on my own and look after our boys too.

On the afternoon of day 6 I tried again to attach her and amazingly she latched on. I was elated! She had the best breastfeed she’d had and slept soundly afterwards. I was concerned that it wouldn’t happen at the next feed by thankfully she latched on again and again and again. It was difficult and time consuming for at least the first 6 weeks. Getting her to latch on would sometimes take up to 10 minutes but eventually she became big enough and strong enough and now at 23 weeks is a real pro!!

I trusted my instincts and ditched the formula. The home visit midwives felt I should top her up after a breastfeed as her weight gain at this stage was minimal but I knew she’d get there in her own time. By the time she reached 4 weeks old she’d gained 700 grams…a huge amount for a baby so tiny and I knew it would all be fine.

[deejie]

Gosh lucky2-- we were talking at our most recent local ABA meeting about things we would tell first time Mums struggling to breastfeed. Persistence was one of them and gosh, you sure had buckets of persistence. Good on you

DS1 and I struggled as well. He was born in a hospital and the midwife who "showed" me how to breastfeed basically slammed his screaming face in to my breast Another had him on a pillow facing away from me and "rolled" him towards my nipple. Both of course were completely wrong and resulted in a very poor latch, but being a naive first time Mum I just went with it. 5 days later, both nipples were shredded, cracked and bleeding. Advice from the MCHN was to "put some Lansinoh on it". First bout of mastitis on left side followed. It was excruciating to feed on that side, so I didn't. No one actually told me I had to get the milk out somehow!
Latch problems continued and second bout of mastitis on left side. I was in tears every feed time because it was so painful, so I sent DH out to purcahse a breast pump and was pumping most feeds because it was too sore to feed from either side. At this time I discovered the ABA hotline and a much more helpful MCHN referred me to a local breastfeeding day stay clinic.... but I had to wait 2-3 weeks to get in.
Follow third bout of mastitis on left side. The supply had dropped to next to nothing. I couldn't latch DS on the right side anymore because he had developed such a preference for the bottle.

When our stay at the clinic rolled around, it was such a relief to feed "nearly" painlessly. I cried! The LC was incredibly helpful and fixed 4 weeks worth of problems in a few hours. I left with a plan to increase the supply on the left side and armed with the knowledge to latch DS properly. It took me a few more weeks to get him off the bottles completely and with the help of a private LC, we finally settled in to BFing around 10-12 weeks.

We had other issues of course-- biting, breast refusal (many times!) and ironically once I got him "off" the bottles of EBM, when I tried to get him back "on" them at 6 months when I was returning to work 2 days a week.... the little monkey refused it flat out. Never had a bottle again.

By 4 months of age, he was breaking out in to hives after every breastfeed. He was covered in eczema and had recurrent skin infections. I knew he was allergic to something and felt like I was poisoning him from the inside. Prescription formulas were no good because
a) they stank
b) he wouldn't drink from a bottle anyway!
DS1 was finally diagnosed with multiple food allergies at 6 months (wheat, soy, cow's milk, egg, oats) and I had to cut all of these things out of my diet to continue feeding. This was incredibly hard and I struggled to maintain a decent diet and my weight (went from 52kg pre preg to 47kg and really did look too thin). He was reassessed at 12 months and I could reintroduce wheat in to my diet (oh the relief!) and also soy. Had to cut out sesame and almond though as he had developed allergies to those (no biggie there!) The diet restrictions, especially the dairy/egg, were very challenging at times and sometimes I resented DS1 for making me "miss out". But I fed him until he self weaned at 23m when I was pregnant with DS2. Never was a woman happier for her child to wean Oh, the things I ate that night.

Looking back I am very proud of my "persistence"... or as DH puts it, sheer bloodymindedness

Thankfully I am finding the BFing journey with DS2 a LOT less challenging.... so far anyway

[lady lady]

oops, will be back with my post just need to shorten it!!

This post has been edited by lady lady: 18/01/2012, 11:24 PM

[Cranky Kitten]

Wow, there's some amazing stories of persistence (bloodymindedness ha ha love it!) and perseverance here

My breastfeeding journey with DD was short but sweet. She quickly learned how to latch on and fed well from day one, growing well and sleeping well. We breezed through until she was 4 months old and I was heading back to work. I've always been bad at expressing, I don't know whether it was the pump I had or just my boobs not responding to it but my supply dropped incredibly in just two weeks, with DD fussing and crying from hunger I reluctantly switched her to formula.

This time around, DS had his first feed within minutes of birth, found the nipple himself and latched straight on. Apparently I have quite short nipples so have to watch his attachment very carefully, had a day or two of blistering and discomfort but that soon settled down and he's now feeding like a champ. It's early days for us but I am loving being able to feed him so easily without any problems from blocked ducts or mastitis, and am loving the way he just snuggles in and looks up at me while patting my breast as he feeds.

[lady lady]

DD’s birth was a dream, she was born at 38 weeks exactly, I didn’t realize I was actually in “real” labour until it was a little bit too late, we arrived at the birth centre to have her in my arms 22 minutes later …..

I had skin to skin for the first hour, then the midwife helped me get her attached … it took a little bit of coaxing and I was already thinking, this is not easy ….. I went home about 48 hours later and the first week was going like a dream, I think I was running on adrenalin and DD hadn’t quite “woken up yet” …… at 7 days the CHN came to do the weigh in … and my world turned upside down ……. DD’s weight wasn’t what it should have been and the lack of sleep was really starting to kick in …..

This is my journey starting from about 1 week after birth …

My baby cried (all the time), I cried (most of the time)

My baby fussed/ couldn’t attach at my breasts (every feed); I began to hate my breasts (every feed)

I questioned my supply….. and then …… questioned my supply some more …… and then possibly…. questioned my supply again ….

I would stare at my baby and just keep saying “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”....

I bought a tin of formula and stared at it every day but could not bring myself to open it....

I sat on the internet and tried to find the answer to my breastfeeding problems every day....

I felt I needed someone to attach my daughter for me at every feed and just sit with me.....why wasn’t that midwife able to come home with me for the next 12 weeks?

I had/ did/ felt:

• milk that didn’t “come in” (although, I now (in hindsight) question this) This resulted in me being advised to take Motilium and pump after every feed, 3 hourly day and night, for about 12 weeks I then had to finger feed what I had pumped to DD … finger feeding bought me tears as I couldn’t co-ordinate it by myself, in the end I decided to ditch the finger feed and give the EBM through a bottle …. I later found out about the SNS system, which I wish I had of known about earlier!!
• DD had such a little mouth that she had poor latch
• DD was on the border line of “failure to thrive” (although, I now (again in hindsight) also question this)
• DD cut her first tooth at 6 weeks
• thrush
• in the early days a sleepy baby at the breast (DD would fall asleep at the breast within 1 minute after I had just spent about 15 minutes trying to attach her)
  then from about 8’sh weeks - a baby that fussed at the breast ... OMG did she fuss at the breast!!!
• irrational thinking
• no ability to “reason” because I was just SOOO TIRED
• slight regret at having a baby
• mad mummy hormones and
• a DH thinking WTF had he gotten himself into....

……I couldn’t accept that I couldn’t breastfeed, this is what drove me …I felt that nature intended for me to breast feed, I kept telling myself women in third world countries do this - there is no reason I can’t do this; I just had to find out “how” nature wanted me to breastfeed ….. It came with persistence and the support of my husband, my family and a fabulous network of professionals ….

……..I found a Lactation Consultant - the specialist of the breastfeeding world …… I’ll be honest - it took me three different LC’s before I got one that I “clicked” with … although looking back now, they were ALL fabulous and gave solid advice and assessment, I was just VERY TIRED and very unreasonable ….

THE FOLLOW UP! One visit was not enough - I saw my LC once a week for the first 4 weeks then once a fortnight for the next month …. I walked out of my first visit with my head held high, I thought all my problems were solved in one visit ………. only to end up in tears all over again a few HOURS later …… this was all free as a public paitent via a breast feeding clinic ...

I had to make myself STOP QUESTIONING MY SUPPLY… DD got weighed every week until she was 6 months old, this gave me peace of mind that her weight was going up so my supply was fine, some weeks where slow (50+ grams) but some weeks where huge (300+grams)…..

I then had to stop blaming breastfeeding for my DD being unsettled and accept that I didn’t have a baby that was peaceful and calm and slept through the night ….…

Breastfeeding Forums & Kellymom.com provided me with daily inspiration and support to keep trying. For me, this was better than any mothers group could offer…

Then it just happened, I actually began to relax ………. somewhere between, 12 - 16 weeks I just stopped questioning and doubting, I can’t even pin point when it happened, it just did …… I remember after one feed, Mum just looked at me and said “that is the first time I have ever seen you relax whilst feeding” ….. I can honestly say breastfeeding is the only thing in my life so far, I have persevered with such determination … truth be told, I usually start something then quit when it gets too hard ….

Hindsight has taught me a lot …. I know next time might be easier or it might be harder, I also know a lot more about breastfeeding.

DD is now 14 months, and will ask for “boobie” or the “udder one” ….… I look at her each day and thank myself, that for once in my life … I just kept trying …..

This post has been edited by lady lady: 19/01/2012, 10:38 PM