Hellobee

Breastfeeding and I have a love-hate relationship. On a personal level, I really dislike breastfeeding. I don’t like dealing with the leaking, pain, engorgement, possible mastitis, etc. On another level though, I have a hard time shaking the “breast is best” slogan. As much as I dislike breastfeeding, I also feel guilt when I don’t want to do it or eventually stop breastfeeding wondering if I should have tried harder, longer, etc. With both Drake and Juliet I struggled greatly in my breastfeeding journey with tongue ties and drastic weight loss, which actually lead to failure to thrive in Juliet’s case. Needless to say once I became pregnant with Fiona, I was determined to never let my pride or belief that breastfeeding worked best to allow my child to suffer as I felt Drake and Juliet both did in some way. Mr Chocolate has always been way more pro-breastfeeding than I have, but I flat out told him I wanted to supplement from birth to avoid the same problems we had with Drake and Juliet.

Fiona entered the world like a lion. Unlike her siblings who both cried briefly and settled down easily, Fiona had a plan of her own. Her loud cries filled the room almost immediately, and once she was placed on my chest she was still quite unhappy. I cradled her and tried to soothe her, but she was not having it. After a few more attempts to get her to settle, I thought I would try nursing. Immediately I checked in her mouth, which was quite easy since she was screaming her head off, to see if I could detect a tongue tie, and sure enough I spotted one. That immediately made me nervous as I had a terrible experience with Drake’s tongue tie. I had a nurse confirm and talked to her about the soonest I could get it snipped. She mentioned possibly having it done in the hospital, otherwise I could bring it up at her first appointment after discharge.

I brought my own nipple shield with me to the hospital, as after two babies I was determined to never breastfeed again without one. As soon as Fiona finally was able to latch on, the shooting pain up my arm and throughout my whole body began. I could feel her clamping down every which way, getting frustrated, and screaming all the while as she held my body hostage in her mouth. This was certainly not a good way to establish a breastfeeding bond if you asked me. Eventually after frustrating both herself and me, Mr. Chocolate took her in his arms and swaddled her and tried to calm her down. She was simply too hysterical to eat the moment. After she was calm we tried again, and once again the pain shot up through me like a jolt. I let her stay on nursing for half an hour, if not longer, as the nurses got me ready to move over to the postpartum rooms.

Once we got settled in at the maternity ward, I tried to nurse Fiona again. She was once again hysterically mad and frustrated, and it took all I had in me to not just throw in the towel right there. I had the nurse come in to check her latch and her tongue (indeed tied), and help her figure out what she was doing. Was she getting milk? I think so? Was she doing it efficiently? I hadn’t a clue. What I could tell was that she liked to eat or wanted to eat, and was willing to let me know very vocally and angrily.

At around 2 AM, when I felt like I had been attempting to nurse Fiona since birth, I called the nurse in to check her latch again, then I caved and asked, “What about supplementing?” The nurse talked to me about nipple confusion and establishing a good nursing routine before introducing the bottle. Part of me wanted to say I didn’t care; I had already watched one child fail to thrive, but in the end I gave in. In my heart of hearts I couldn’t fight the guilt that consumed me about breastfeeding.

F R I D A Y  –  F I R S T  D O C T O R ‘ S  A P P O I N T M E N T  

The next day Fiona’s weight had dropped from her birth weight of 8 lbs 8 ozs to 7 lbs 11 ozs — within the realm of the 10% but already enough to start my mental panicking. The nurses all assured me it was fine, it was normal, and I was doing a fine job. After discharge when we arrived at her first doctor’s visit, she had dropped again down to 7 lbs 6 ozs. Her doctor said that the rapid loss was a bit concerning, and perhaps to start supplementing formula. I was given a little syringe and instructed to give Fiona an extra 15 mLs of formula after each feeding. At that same appointment we took care of Fiona’s tongue tie in the office. I made her next appointment for the following week.

Fiona had her first appointment on Friday and her next appointment was on Monday for a weight check. Over the weekend I started to notice that Fiona wasn’t going to the bathroom much.  Newborns are supposed to have the same number of wet diapers as they are days old and at 4 days old I was barely getting 1 wet diaper let alone 4 or a bowel movement. Newborn diapers usually have a wetness strip to show you when they needed to be changed and none of Fiona’s pees ever registered on her diapers. More alarming I was seeing brick dust, that heavy concentrated redness in baby diapers caused usually by dehydration. I was using the formula, sometimes even giving her a little extra so I didn’t understand what was happening. I knew we would be seeing the doctor again in a few days, but the dry diapers were starting to worry me.

S U N D A Y  –  W E I G H T  C H E C K

On Sunday I decided it was better to get her seen than to wait. Before I left Fiona finally made a wet enough diaper to set off her wetness strip. I took the dry diapers and that one along to show the doctor. When they weighed her she was down to 7 lbs 2 ozs, a loss of 4 ounces in a matter of days. While we were waiting she made another wet diaper to soak the wetness strip. I never thought I would be so excited about a wet diaper, but I was. I talked to the doctor after telling him about the supplementing, and he said perhaps it was just taking some time for her body to catch up from the few days she lost before we supplemented. Pleased with the new wet diapers, I went home with hope things were finally back on track. Though I didn’t think it was plausible, I naively gave myself enough hope to think that maybe breastfeeding was finally working this time and maybe supplementing would be just that and we might eventually be able to wean away from it even.

W E D N E S D A Y  –  W E I G H T  C H E C K

On Wednesday we went back to the doctor and Fiona weighed 7 lbs 4 ozs. She had barely gained back any weight, which was discouraging to hear as I had felt like I was nursing around the clock and I was also supplementing on top of it. The doctor had me up the supplementation and come back in a week to see how she was progressing.

L A C T A T I O N  C O N S U L T A N T

I contacted the lactation consultant from the hospital and made an appointment. She had an opening the next day so Fiona and I went to her office the following day. Once there she plopped Fiona on her special scale. The idea is to weigh the baby before a feeding (she had asked us to come when Fiona was hungry) and then after to see how much they take in per feeding. This lactation consultant has known me through the years, working with me with all my children. After she weighed Fiona I latched her on and we talked about strategies to help increase my milk (fenugreek, extra pumping sessions), the quality of the milk (eating healthy fats like olive oil and avocado), and also how to supplement (with feeding tubes) without disrupting nursing. We chatted and once Fiona stopped nursing for a few minutes, we popped her on the scale again. My heart sank when I was told after half an hour or more, and she had only managed to extract half an ounce of milk. At her age the doctor said she ought to be drinking close to 2-3 ozs per feeding, meaning I would basically have to nurse her non stop to keep up with her needs.

O N E  W E E K  L A T E R

A week went by. I nursed on demand at every cry, whimper, mew, any sound and I immediately latched her on in hopes that my efforts and my milk were finally doing their job. I held her constantly in my arms wondering about her weight. Once again I was consumed with numbers. At her next appointment a week later I placed Fiona on the scale and 7 lbs 4 ozs flashed on the screen again. The nurse looked at the chart and thought something had been off with the scale. We tried again only to see 7 lbs 4 ozs flash up. Despite all my efforts and even with the extra supplementing Fiona didn’t gain a single ounce that whole week. When it was time to see the doctor, she looked at me with all the compassion and sympathy I needed at that moment. We had been down this road before with Juliet and while we hadn’t hit the lowest point as we had in the past it was clearly not good.

We talked at length about my nursing sessions, the amount of times she fed per day, how long she would stay on, how much formula was I giving after and at the very end she acknowledged how hard I was working for my daughter, but alas perhaps I simply wasn’t capable of making enough milk for my children. She said it had nothing to do with me personally and clearly I was trying my best to breastfeed, but sometimes it just simply doesn’t work. Needless to say we both didn’t want to have it spiral out of control like it had in Juliet’s case. It would seem breast was simply not best in my case.

We talked about switching to a bottle since I would now need to up Fiona’s feedings even more, and it was very tedious and time consuming to use the syringe, plus a lot of it would slop out of her mouth due to the nature of the feeding. She told me to keep breastfeeding as I wanted to, but to always finish each feeding with supplementation and to look at it as a team effort of both breast milk and formula to provide for my child. That night Fiona got her first bottle which she took to with the same gusto she took to every feeding session since her birth.

O N E   M O R E  W E E K  L A T E R

A week later when we returned to the doctor, the happiest sight flashed on the screen when I saw the number 8 on the scale that day. Fiona was 8 lbs 1 oz; things were finally heading in the right direction! The face the doctor made when she came in to do her exam told me she was also quite happy finally.

Since that exam Fiona steadily climbed back up the charts. At her 1 month appointment, which was only 10 days after the one where she weighed 8 lbs 1 oz, she passed her birth weight topping in at 9 lbs 4 ozs. At that visit we the doctor sais we no longer needed to come every week anymore and Fiona was cleared to come in at normal scheduled visits. It was music to my ears after the past month of constant visits.

W H E R E  W E  A R E  N O W

I now breastfeed Fiona before every feeding and then give her a sizable bottle afterwards. I’ve come to see that as much as I want to breastfeed, at times that it’s simply not the best choice for our family. I still have some guilt for not being able to exclusively breastfeed, but I look at Fiona and her happy little face and know that in the end all she cares is that I’m doing my best for her. No amount of breastmilk, large or small, will make her think less of me.

Happy and thriving