Hellobee

As we get closer to Little Deer’s first birthday, I can’t help but think about the fact that this means I’ve done it – I’ve breastfed LD for a full year! Woohoo! *Cue music and small celebratory dance around the living room.* Boy I never thought I would see this day. It’s been a long time coming, that’s for sure. Breastfeeding for a year was always my original goal, but I remember thinking in those early weeks that I couldn’t possibly even keep it up one more day, let alone a full year. I had prepared myself for breastfeeding to be challenging, but it was so much more than that. It was excruciating. All I wanted to do was feed my sweet baby; why did it have to be so hard?

I remember sitting up in the middle of the night nursing LD and searching on my phone for answers. Reading about other people’s breastfeeding journeys helped a lot. Seeing how others were able to overcome similar challenges both comforted and motivated me. I knew that I wasn’t alone. There were many other new moms going through the same things.

On that note, I thought I would celebrate this big milestone in our breastfeeding journey, by writing about my breastfeeding experience. I thought I’d start with what our first few days looked like, then do some more posts about our experience with a lactation specialist, getting Little Deer’s tongue clipped, visiting a breastfeeding clinic, long-term nipple shield use, and going through Occupational Therapy to help with her latch. I also want to share some resources that I have found to be valuable. I hope that reading my story might serve as encouragement to those new moms just starting out and help them realize that they are not alone.

So happy one-year of breastfeeding! Let’s jump right in and start at the beginning…

Back when I was still pregnant, I was reading everything I could about breastfeeding. And I don’t just mean skimming. I mean I was full-on taking notes. I wanted to be as prepared as possible. I knew that nursing would be challenging, but I thought I could overcome it by understanding the in’s and out’s of breastfeeding. Though all my reading did come in handy, it wasn’t enough.

The first hint of the challenges to come started when I was reading a section about inverted/flat nipples in one of the breastfeeding books. It said if you pressed above and below your nipples and they did not protrude (but instead stayed flush with the areola or even retracted) you may have some trouble with breastfeeding. Although I didn’t normally have that issue, my breasts were very swollen with pregnancy. When I did this quick test I found that they did indeed stay flat. I brought this up at my next midwifery appointment, but the midwife I saw that day assured me that everything would be alright. Even with flat or inverted nipples, oftentimes babies are able to nurse just fine.

After Little Deer was born and I was all fixed up, we did some skin-to-skin and nursed. She was very alert and awake when she was born, and seemed happy to latch right on. I remember feeling like I had no idea what I was doing though. Did she have a good latch? Was she swallowing? I had no idea. Though it was a bit uncomfortable at first, it didn’t hurt too much. I remember thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I had thought. I had been looking forward to seeing a Lactation Specialist while we were in the hospital, but since LD was born on the weekend there weren’t any available.

By about our fourth nursing session, I could tell something wasn’t quite right. It hurt. A LOT. After she was done I could see my nipple was flattened and white. The nurses said this meant she had a very shallow latch. They worked hard to help her open her mouth wider, but it didn’t seem to be working. She was checked for a tongue tie but had none. Finally, one nurse came in with a nipple shield. She said that we may need to use this for a little bit until I was less swollen and we both got the hang of it. I had never seen a nipple shield before, though I had read about them. I remember some moms saying that they were life-savers while others said it hurt their milk supply. I decided it was worth trying.

Though breastfeeding still hurt and I wasn’t quite sure what we were doing, we headed home just one day after Little Deer was born. The nipple shields were annoying, and I had trouble getting them to stay on, so I decided to tough it out without them and see if we could get things to work on our own. It was becoming pretty apparent that something really wasn’t right though. I found that nursing her wasn’t just painful, it was downright excruciating. I would have to roll up a washcloth and put it in my mouth to bite down to get through the pain. Often I would end up crying, tears streaming down my face, shaking, and nauseous. It was awful. I remember telling Mr. Deer that it was more painful than labor, and that I’d rather be in labor again than deal with breastfeeding. He would sit with me as I tried to nurse, hold my hand, get me water, check her latch… he wanted so desperately to help. I know that was a really difficult period of time for him too. Seeing me in so much pain and so anxious and upset was terrible.

Rather than our nursing time being a sweet, snuggling, bonding experience, it was something I began to dread. I quickly developed raw sores on my nipples that began to bleed. I tried the nursing shields again, but even the friction of those hurt. Soon, the pain was nearly unbearable. I knew what we were doing wasn’t sustainable. I felt like I was drowning. It was time to finally contact a Lactation Specialist and get some help…

.  .  .  .  .

We ended up working with a Lactation Specialist several times, and in my next post I’ll share in detail what that experience looked like, what it cost, and what we learned.

How were your first couple of days of nursing?