Hellobee

First off, I will say I hate breastfeeding. How taboo! In the most recent Swarm about breastfeeding challenges, I was one of the more vocal about my horrible experience breastfeeding Drake. Even before I gave birth to Drake I had reservations about the idea of breastfeeding, but after having him I downright hated it.  While I know the saying, “Breast is best,” I can say in all honesty breastfeeding traumatized me in many ways that made me question if I even wanted another child, as I didn’t want to experience the pain, frustration, and anxiety it caused me. So when I found out I was pregnant again, one of my biggest worries was how I was going to make it through breastfeeding again.

This is what happened after my daughter was born.

The first time my daughter Juliet latched, within the hour of her birth when we were still enjoying skin to skin time, I remember cringing and holding myself back for the pain I knew was coming. Right before she latched I asked the nurses to check extensively for a tongue tie as Drake had had one, and I wasn’t making that mistake again. I was reassured numerous times that she did not have one, but I was still terrified for the pain I associated with the entire process.  To my surprise it didn’t hurt.  The second time I let her nurse, hours later, the same experience happened — no pain.

I won’t say I found the experience enjoyable, but it certainly was a step in the right direction. That night after Juliet woke up I confidently let her latch, marveling at the idea that I could actually breastfed, when the pain shot up through me like a knife.  I looked down at my sweet little girl to see her happily sucking vigorously and not realizing the pain she was causing me.  I unlatched her and tried again with the same result.  I tried one last time before hitting the nurse’s button. What had changed?

A nurse came in and after examining me, she noted how she could see the blisters forming already even though it had only been a few short minutes.  She watched me latch her and noted the latch was correct. There was indeed no tongue tie (I asked her to check again), and my baby had quite a hard suck.  I mentioned how the previous few times I had let her latch it never hurt, so why all of a sudden was the pain unbearable? Her only rationale was that perhaps before Juliet hadn’t really been sucking very hard, that newborns are often lazy and sleepy their first day or so, and perhaps now she was finally hungry and making more of an effort which was causing her to suck harder.

Over the next day in the hospital, I had every nurse who came in to check my latch, check for a tongue tie (I was convinced there had to be one), and muscled my way through feedings like I did with Drake with the help of a nipple shield and Lansinoh cream. Every time she would latch, I would bite back a scream and watch the clock hoping she would finish quickly and go back to sleep.

On day three when we got home, I broke down and cried — it was the exact situation I was fearing. I was religiously using the Lansinoh and nipple shield and still the pain was just as awful as it had been with Drake. I figured I simply was not made to breastfed. After all, Juliet didn’t have a tongue tie and yet the pain felt exactly the same as if she had.  I thought about switching to pumping again and decided to make it to one week, to ensure my milk was coming in and I had a good demand for the milk.

I went through the day dreading each feeding. Each time she latched on I thought I was going to die. Day in and day out I pushed on and then little by little, something changed; I don’t know what or why, but slowly the pain began to ease up. First latching still hurt a lot, but over time as the feed continued, the pain would lessen to a tolerable degree.

I made it to the first week and decided to extend it to a week and a half to see if the pain would continue to lessen or at least be manageable. It did.  Slowly it started to dawn on me that perhaps I could breastfeed after all.

While I contemplated this new revelation, we were also in the midst of some weight loss issues. At birth Juliet was 7 lbs 14 ozs and at discharge she was 7 lbs 5 ozs. But at her first doctor’s appointment a few days after we left the hospital, she had dropped down to 6 lbs 14 ozs which had me quite discouraged.  While I wasn’t panicked — I had experienced weight loss issues with Drake that were far worse than this time so I knew things would work out — I was still a little discouraged, especially since I had made it through the first hurdles of breastfeeding and was now somewhat committed to the idea of sticking it out for at least a few more months only to run into this complication.  I pushed forward and continued to breastfed for longer periods and found that while I still didn’t love the experience, I did get some kind of satisfaction from it too.

At her next weight check I was rewarded for my efforts when Juliet weighed in at 7 lbs 8 ozs!  Even the nurse was surprised at such a large gain!  I felt validated that all my hard work and pushing through had finally made the difference., Juliet also rewarded me for my time by starting to sleep longer stretches of up to 6 hours straight at night!

At that weigh in though, the nurse noticed Juliet’s eyes were still somewhat yellow and wanted the doctor to come check them out.  The doctor came in and checked Juliet out, commented on her impressive weight gain and how overall she looked to be a very happy healthy baby girl, but the fact that her eyes were still yellow, especially being over 2 weeks old, was a little worrisome.  She mentioned to me that she suspected Juliet had jaundice, but by the looks of her she thought it was more likely to be breastmilk jaundice.

Breastmilk jaundice essentially means that something in the breast milk is not allowing the body to break down the bilirubin. Thus it stays in the system causing that yellowish color in the skin, eyes, etc.  It’s harmless and will pass on its own, but you cant distinguish it from the more severe liver jaundice either without blood work.  If levels for jaundice are high after a blood draw, babies are often put on formula for 24-48 hours and then have another blood draw to see if levels drop.  If they do it’s most likely breastmilk jaundice and babies can return to breastfeeding and in time it will pass on its own.  If levels don’t change then additional testing is done to confirm liver jaundice and additional steps will need to be taken.

I took Juliet to get her blood drawn and was told that her levels were quite high: 18.8. As a reference, my doctor told me had she been at 20 or higher, she would have had to been hospitalized. Since her levels were so high, we had to use formula for 48 hours to determine the cause. I admit at first thought I was thrilled — no breastfeeding for 2 days — how wonderful.  I would have to pump, of course, but I have never minded pumping half as much as breastfeeding.

That evening when Juliet woke up to eat, I gleefully made a bottle for her and sat down to feed her. At first she struggled with the bottle, and I felt a pang of guilt for my happiness in wanting to give her a bottle. But then a light bulb went off and she got the idea and started to eat like a champ. Another wave of feeling hit me, but instead of happiness this time, I felt sadness.  As I watched her take to the bottle just as well as she took to breastfeeding, I realized that somewhere along the way my attitude toward breastfeeding had changed too.  While I never felt that warm bonding experience so many woman say they have when breastfeeding, I also realized I didn’t resent or hate it as much as I once thought. And now that as I saw Juliet just as content with a bottle as she had been with me, I saw how much I did miss the experience in some way. I missed seeing her little mouth open in expectation, earning her the nickname of Little Bird from Mr. Chocolate. I missed seeing her drift off to sleep in my arms as she ate. I missed the warmth of her little body snuggled up against me.  I missed the contentment I saw in her face as she laid in my arms sleeping after she popped off.

After this experience with a bottle, I wondered if she would want to breastfeed anymore or if she would prefer the bottle to me instead and refuse to come back. Or even worse — would the pain be too much after this small break for me to let her come back again? I wondered if that last time I fed before I took her to get her blood draw was our last time breastfeeding. If I had thought about it like that then, would I have tried harder to extend that feed and take in the moment knowing it might be our last?

Over the next 48 hours I thought about all these things. When I took her back for the follow-up draw, I waited by the phone for the doctor’s call all the while wondering what would happen once we got the results. When I did get the call, her levels had dropped to 12.6 and the doctor was confident that with such a large drop it was most likely breastmilk jaundice. She gave me the ok to return to breastfeeding, and told me that in time the jaundice would resolve itself.

As I waited for her next feed time, my mind raced with a million questions: Would she reject breastfeeding now? Would I reject it? Would it hurt again? And mostly, how would I feel if it didn’t work anymore for any of those reasons?

And then I held my baby girl in my arms and saw her latch on happily and start to eat as if nothing had changed. I breathed a sigh of relief to myself.  Somewhere along the way, it seems I found a way to embrace this process after all.