Alyssa's Breastfeeding Story

This breastfeeding story comes from Alyssa. Alyssa had two different journeys breastfeeding her sons and learned some valuable life lessons!

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When our first son was born, it was my goal to breastfeed for 6 months. I was certain I wouldn’t want to go beyond that and would happily relinquish feeding duty to his dad at that time. Well, I breastfed our first son until he was 17 months old. Aside from the usual aches, pains, and learning curves, it was a pretty easy journey. He latched right away, my milk came in right on time, and before I knew it I could feed him while simultaneously folding laundry or cooking dinner. Despite intermittently feeling like a human pacifier, I really enjoyed our breastfeeding journey and was all sorts of emotional when my son decided he was done out of the blue one day. I had been a slight over-supplier so I was able to donate about 80 ounces I had left over to a baby that had been adopted. The whole journey felt so great, I would dare say perfect, so when I got pregnant with our second baby I expected the same thing. 

Insert sarcastic laughter here.*

Our second son came into this world thinking everything would be given to him with minimal effort on his part. He had a lazy latch, he lost nearly 10% of his body weight by 3 days old, his bilirubin was borderline, and my milk trickled in slowly which resulted in us nearly having to supplement with formula. Gasp! Supplementing was absolutely not an option in my mind at the time so I shoved my toddler over to my husband and breastfed nearly 24/7 for the next 2 days in an attempt to fix everything. Which I did. I was thrilled when our son’s weight surpassed his birth weight and his bilirubin levels returned to normal within a week of delivery. I thought the worst was behind us until a white-coated tongue reared its ugly head and our sweet babe was diagnosed with thrush. For 5 weeks, I gave him oral nystatin 4 times per day and applied clotrimazole cream to my nipples after every single feed. I sterilized all of my pump equipment and washed everything that came in touch with my breastmilk on a daily basis. I remember thinking to myself that I’d rather have mastitis because it’d be easier to treat. So when the aching and redness started, I laughed and cursed at myself. Our little guy had a tongue tie, so we had that revised and I finished antibiotics and was back to normal for a few days. And then the body aches and redness came back with a vengeance. 

Since his birth 5 months ago, I have had 7 bouts of mastitis resulting in multiple antibiotics, 2 mammograms, decreased milk supply, and the seemingly dreaded necessity to supplement with formula. This decision came with so much anxiety, feelings of guilt, and lots of tears. I felt like a failure. I spend portions of my day working in healthcare telling moms that “fed is best”, but I couldn’t accept that myself. My loving, supportive, encouraging husband assured me that I was doing such a great job; that supplementing was not a sign of failure. I have successfully built my supply back up since this most recent bout of mastitis but we continue to supplement because our son seems to be a bottomless pit. I am so glad I continue to provide for him, but I am also happy that my husband can tag in and give him a bottle from time to time so that I can spend more time with our toddler or get a stretch of sleep once in a blue moon. 

This breastfeeding journey has been nothing compared to my first. It has come with different forms of growth, a different appreciation for the challenges that cause mothers to quit breastfeeding, a deeper sense of satisfaction in overcoming obstacle after obstacle, and letting go of the plans I made and going with the flow instead. At the end of the day, I am just as proud of this journey as I am of my first, even if I am unable to breastfeed as long as I did previously. By sharing my story, it is my hope that any woman who reads it feels accomplished no matter what her story is. Though each story is unique, every woman should feel proud of bringing a life into the world and making the often tough decisions necessary to ensure her child is happy and healthy. Because we may not be perfect, but we are exactly what our children need. And sometimes we forget how incredibly amazing we are.

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What do you think about Alyssa’s story? We think she is amazing! Thanks for sharing Alyssa!

Did you face the possibility of supplementing or formula feeding your baby due to issues with breastfeeding? How did you work through that decision? Let us know in the comments below!

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Would you like to share your breastfeeding story on our blog? Submit it here!

Carly's Breastfeeding Story and Some Nursing Tips for New Moms

Our story this week comes from Carly. After nursing two babies, she’s found some tricks and good advice for new nursing moms - whether it’s your first and last!

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Both my breastfeeding journeys had similarities and differences, but my key takeaways were that neither was “easy” and both were so worth it. My first daughter was born in 2016 weighing 5 lbs. 10 oz. and consistently gained weight and latched, but I had incredible pain for weeks. 
Even after a lip tie revision and multiple lactation appointments to work on her latch, I had bad bruising and pain until she was about eight weeks old and finally opened her mouth wide enough for nursing to not be painful. Although I cried (with her) through many middle of the night feedings, I’m so glad I stuck with it. Unfortunately I was an ounce obsessed pumper once I went back to work, and while I was able to meet my goal of breastfeeding without supplementing the entire first year, it definitely came at a cost. 

I pumped multiple times a day, adding in extra pumps before work and before bed (all while nursing overnight) to keep our freezer stash going, and when it ultimately began to dwindle at 10-11 months I did panic a bit. The fears were unfounded and she actually had frozen breast milk until she was 15 months, and nursed until 19 months after many months of me trying to wean due to the fact that she was an “acrobatic nurser.” 

I know that without additional lactation support and education early on, we wouldn’t have made it through those early weeks, and with my understanding of the road blocks during breastfeeding I was sure my second baby would be easier. 

Wrong.

And not only was it not easier, the challenges were totally different. Spoiler. It didn’t hurt less. It did hurt for less time. What was most upsetting about my experience with our second daughter was that even though I in theory knew what to look for, we had an undiagnosed tier three tongue tie (and lip tie) until eight months. 

She was an avid nurser from the beginning and I was in way less pain after about two weeks, so I thought things were going really well. When I started having pain again at four weeks, I all but assumed this would be how it was forever. At every doctor’s appointment I brought up the fact that she choked while eating and almost sounded like she was aspirating at feedings. Since she was gaining weight the doctor (and lactation consultant (LC) at the pediatrician) assured me that she was fine. 

Fast forward to our four month appointment and she wasn’t transferring more than 2 oz during a morning feeding, and the LC at the ped called her a “slow gainer” because she dropped from the 55% down into the 42%. She maintained her growth percentile in the 40s and 50s throughout her first year, but that comment really shook me. I started taking fish oil and pumped once a day even though I stayed home with her for almost a year. 

When we went to introduce solids at six months she had an FPIES (Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome) reaction that led me down a huge rabbit hole of food allergies and how to introduce solids when your little one has an allergic reaction. That said, she’d never had formula or any dairy, which was a big potential FPIES trigger.

In the midst of this diagnosis, she started refusing to nurse more than 3-4 minutes at a time during the day, while nursing 3x overnight. I was exhausted and panicked at the thought my supply would tank since she wasn’t nursing during the day, and I didn’t even know if she could safely drink formula due to the potential allergy. 

I also noticed that when we were giving solids she seemed unable to swallow well, and was having trouble keeping the food in her mouth. Our oldest never had this problem and I wondered if she hadn’t lost the “tongue thrust reflex” that keeps babies from choking. 

As all this was happening at the same time, I finally found a lactation consultant who was willing to help. We were in the midst of early COVID and she couldn’t see me in person since we’d left the hospital, but she recommended a pediatric dentist, a craniosacral therapist, and a private LC I could also visit. 

With many appointments in hand, I was pumping multiple times a day to keep my supply up, nursing all night, and trying to keep my sanity with a four-year-old in pre-K and COVID running rampant. I found out my daughter had a tier three tongue tie that probably contributed to her choking on milk in the early days, and may be impacting her ability to swallow solids. We got both her tongue and lip released at eight months and did the exercises every three hours to keep it from sealing back together. 

At this point I’d also seen another LC (and she still wasn’t transferring more than 2 oz during her morning nurse) but she told me she felt strongly that our daughter was thriving and that she was doing OK – and as long as she kept nursing I could stop pumping during the day. We finally tried another round of sleep training at nine months because I couldn’t handle the 3x/night wake ups with no nursing during the day, and wanted to get to a more “normal” feeding and sleep schedule. After a couple of weeks we got to a much better place. 

We also started seeing an allergist and nutritionist virtually through the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) FPIES clinic, and had a plan to tackle solid introduction. I also relaxed a little once she had yogurt and could in theory tolerate dairy. At this point I had over 1,000 oz. of breastmilk in the freezer because I’d pumped daily without giving extra bottles. 

During the time of her FPIES reaction and nursing strike during the day, we switched pediatricians. I called the LC (who was also a nurse) on staff at our old pediatrician and she told me not to worry about the FPIES reaction and that we’d talk about it at her nine month appointment, but to stop giving rice, which was her trigger food – (duh). She also told me during the nursing strike that our daughter was self weaning, and that I should introduce cups instead of the breast. My daughter was also refusing cups, which made my anxiety worse. The combination of the bad advice in her first few months, a dismissal of the FPIES, and her thoughts that we were weaning at seven months made it too hard for me to stay, and so we found a new pediatrician. 

I’m so passionate about the fact that most moms aren’t given enough information to get off to a fast start on their nursing journeys, I put together a free breastfeeding quick start guide that helps you with everything you need to know to begin nursing a baby. It’s filled with all the information I wish I’d known the first time around. It breaks my heart that so many women feel like they have to give up on their breastfeeding goals simply because they don't have the information or tools to help. 

As I look back, the one thing I want other moms to know is that they should trust their gut. I knew something was wrong with her feeding as an infant, and although we didn’t get it fixed until much later, I did push to speak to three lactation consultants and the pediatrician the first month of COVID when everything was locked down. 

I didn’t believe that the FPIES reaction was “nothing” and that we should just go about our day. I found another doctor who took me seriously and was able to diagnose what was going on. We were lucky to catch it so early and come up with a plan. 

After she went on her nursing strike, I didn’t take it at face value that she was weaning. I went in search of other information and found help. I finally figured out that her tongue tie combined with the distractibility of a seven-month-old could have just made it too “hard” for her to nurse during the day. We got answers, and I’m happy to say she’s still nursing at 21 months. 

We recently left our daughters for the first time in two years (and the first time ever for our youngest) and I was so sad to think that she may not want to nurse when we came home. I know that our time is coming to an end soon, but I’ll always look back on this time with my babies as some of the best in my life. After 40+ months of nursing two daughters, it’s been a long road, but one that I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

I’m so glad we made it through. And I’m so grateful that we had the help to keep going.

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What do you think about Carly’s story? We think she did an amazing job of fighting for her babies! Thanks for sharing Carly!
Would you like to share your breastfeeding story on our blog? Submit it here!

Kelley's Breastfeeding Story

Our story this week comes from Kelley. Kelley’s story is one of determination and perseverance. Read on to see how Kelley pushed to make breastfeeding work for her and her son.

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I remember a day years and years ago, when I still worked in the hospitality industry and a woman whom I knew came into the restaurant for lunch with her infant. Mid lunch I realized she was nursing the kid and I was horrified, whispering to the other staff about how dare she! Oh, the horror! I was self-righteous in my indignation and of course, I never wanted children and definitely would never breast feed.

Fast forward two decades and here I was, holding our infant son. Born eight days after my 42nd birthday, our boy came four weeks early yet still weighed a hefty seven pounds. And while I had a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy, save a slight bout of preeclampsia at the end that prompted the early labor, we had a very healthy little boy. But he did have low blood sugar and therefore the nurses started him off straight away on tiny little bottles of formula, despite the words ‘breastfeeding’ written on my chart and on his little baby card fixed to the hospital bassinet.  Once we became pregnant, somewhat miraculously and naturally after three tries at the ripe old age of 41, I quickly realized I would nurse our child. Something deep within me shifted, the first of many monumental changes that moved me toward full-on motherhood. What I didn’t yet realize nor could I ever have understood was that what seemed so natural would not come easy. In fact, it was incredibly difficult.

In the hospital we met with three different lactation consultants who all said different things. One put a nursing shield on me, which I hated. Another gave me a crash course in the football hold, a complicated maneuver that my sleep-deprived brain couldn’t grasp, prompting me to take copious amounts of nursing selfies, hoping to replicate the pose once we went home.

Another brought in a small tub for washing pump parts, a method she meticulously detailed over some 20 painful minutes while I could feel my husband tensing and gritting his teeth. 

“I know how to wash dishes, for crying out loud,” he grumbled upon her departure. We were frustrated, tired, overwhelmed, confused – dutifully feeding our son those tiny bottles of ‘medically necessary’ formula while trying to squeeze out my colostrum and feeding it from a spoon.

Thankfully my sister, who had breastfed my niece 18 years before, told me I needed to pump since our son wasn’t nursing that well. I started pumping, listening to the constant whirring sound of the hospital-grade pump, so tired and frustrated and feeling like a failure. Then, my milk came in – buttery yellow, thick and in great amounts. 

Honestly, I cannot remember if we fed our son that milk in the hospital. I think we did, but for whatever reason they still sent us home loaded up with those tiny bottles of formula. We had a sheet of paper to log all feeds, and the amounts, along with paper upon paper of instructions. Not to mention my selfies of that football hold, the one position that really seemed to work.

We soon found our way to the pediatrician’s office as instructed, where we learned that our son was losing weight. Babies can lose up to 10 percent of birth weight, which for our son meant no more than 11 ounces, not quite ¾ of a pound, or in our case, not less than 6 pounds 5 ounces.  Despite all of my best efforts he still lost weight. Those first days home our routine consisted of me trying to nurse for up to 30 minutes, using a cold wipe and trying like hell to rouse our sleepy little new baby. My husband would lurk, impatient for his turn to feed, until I would give up and hand over our son, tears streaking my cheeks, weary in my desperation. I would grab the pump a friend gifted us off our registry, a fantastic Medela almost as efficient as the one in the hospital. In my exhaustion sometimes I would hear words from the whirring, or make up songs to go along with the noise. Over days the constant churning of that pump seemed to mock me, yet the ounces upon ounces the machine received from my body kept me going, providing the encouragement I needed. We did this routine every two hours, and I could feel my husband silently cursing my determination.

Back at the pediatrician’s office with our son continuing to lose, the lactation consultant told us to use a syringe for the weekend feeds and ordered us back into the office Monday. It felt like my last chance, and in hindsight, it sure was. The routine was the same except my husband used a syringe instead of a bottle, which he detested. These so-called ‘squirrel feeds’ didn’t seem natural to him, and they left him unsettled. All that weekend I tried to nurse a lazy sleepy little bottle-fed baby while my husband lurked, impatient, for his turn to squirrel feed as I pumped. Except this time, miraculously, our son decided he did not care for a syringe and instead would try out the boob.

We returned to the pediatrician that Monday, happy to see his weight starting to creep back up. We got the green light to stop the syringe feeding and our son started nursing. But subsequent visits to the pediatrician had him not quite gaining as he should, yet again. Another round with the lactation consultant who again helped me with his latch and then told me about hind milk. She told me to keep him on each side for 20 minutes, which really never worked. He was a consistent 10 minutes per side kind of babe and thankfully, that wound up perfectly ok. The little guy wound up taking to the breast, finally, and within his first few weeks of life, after such a hard time that I think most people would have given up. In fact, my husband really encouraged me to stop trying. But I love a challenge and here we were – the reluctant breastfeeder, determined and refusing to give up. Our son never did take a bottle after that first week and wouldn’t take a pacifier. The little nugget who preferred formula at first had become quite the little boob snob.

Today, we are still going strong at 29 months. I never in a million years expected to nurse at all, let alone this long. We did recently night wean, a process that took several attempts before he was ready. Since the start we have been staunchly against any form of sleep training or cry-it-out, so I wasn’t about to do any sort of forced night weaning. The first few tries he got upset so I abandoned the attempts. Finally, right around 27.5 months he was OK with it. We still nurse to sleep and bedshare, but he knows no more milk until the sun shines. If he wakes at night we cuddle, and he rarely asks for milk anymore. But every morning when that sun comes up he loudly declares, “Sun uuupppp” and pounces like a tiger!

I’ve no idea when our journey will come to an end and honestly, I am ok with continuing to let him lead. I know not everyone understands or ‘approves’ – honestly, I didn’t get it either until we had our son. Now I know it is a bond like no other, and I know when our journey ends, I will miss it very much. And these days when I think back to that mama nursing in that restaurant, my heart warms and a smile creeps across my face. I see you, mama, and I have become you. Thank you.

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What do you think about Kelley’s story? We think she’s a rockstar! Thanks for sharing Kelley!

Would you like to share your breastfeeding story on our blog? Submit it here!

How Clare Found the Encouragement to Keep Breastfeeding

Our story this week comes from Clare. She shares about her two different experiences with breastfeeding and how she found the encouragement needed to keep on breastfeeding her second child.

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Before having children, I remember once seeing a woman nonchalantly breastfeeding a baby in a shopping center while she browsed the aisles. This image has always stuck with me as an example of how easy and effortless breastfeeding CAN be. I later came to realize that it rarely ever is, at least not at the beginning. 

I have two boys who are two and a half, and three months. With my first baby, Ronnie, I had quite a quick delivery and was in shock for a few minutes after he was born. When I came to and tried to breastfeed, he struggled to latch on and I ended up hand expressing colostrum into his mouth for the first day. We were discharged from hospital after 24 hours expecting a midwife visit the next day. Unfortunately, due to a mix up the midwife didn’t come until day three, by which time Ronnie still hadn’t managed a good latch. During that visit the midwife managed to help him latch on and he had a really good feed in the side-lying position. I felt hopeful that this would work. However after she left I couldn’t replicate the latch, and by the next midwife visit on day four Ronnie was quite jaundiced, dry skinned and had lost more than 10% of his birth weight. The midwife was unable to help him latch-on this time, so my husband ran to the shop and bought some ready-to-feed bottles of formula which he guzzled down hungrily. I had to go back to hospital because my blood pressure was extremely high. On the way there we phoned my sister-in-law and asked her to buy a sterilizer, pump and bottles. I learned how to use them in hospital and was discharged again later that day on some medication for my blood pressure.

Various people tried to help me with the breastfeeding after that, but it seemed like Ronnie loved the bottle and nothing else! We discovered he had a slight tongue tie but the procedure to cut it made no difference to his feeding. For the first few weeks and months I would often try and breastfeed without success. Once in a while he seemed to latch-on correctly, but most of the time he would scream and cry and thrash around at the nipple. An extremely unpleasant experience for both of us! I expressed milk about six to eight times a day and topped up anything else he needed with formula until four months when we switched to all formula. 

I remember lots of times feeling really disappointed that the breastfeeding hadn’t worked out. Although I could see the benefits of bottle feeding, I found regularly expressing milk was time consuming and inconvenient, and I felt like a failure. I beat myself up with thoughts that if we lived in times before formula and pumps he would have starved to death (the concept of a wet nurse didn’t console me)! The rational part of my brain knew it was perfectly fine not to breastfeed, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty and ashamed. I sought a lot of help and received endless suggestions for new ways to help him latch. I felt like I couldn’t give up, but deep down I wished someone would just tell me definitively, ‘it’s not working, it’s not your fault, and nothing you do now will help him breastfeed’. On reflection, I know it was unreasonable to expect someone else to tell me this. The decision had to come from me. The last straw was a lactation consultant who recommended some tongue exercises for Ronnie. I just knew that trying to get a baby to exercise his tongue was something I could not find time or motivation to do. Looking back I do not regret the time I spent expressing milk for Ronnie but I do regret all the time I spent feeling upset and guilty about not breastfeeding. Time that would have been better spent enjoying my baby! 

Following my experience with Ronnie, I made a pact with myself that if my second baby found it difficult to breastfeed, I would straight away give formula. I knew that balancing a toddler and baby alongside regular expressing was not going to work for me.

After a really smooth (dare I say, relaxed!) birth, I had skin to skin contact with my second boy, Frank, straight away and the midwife helped him latch on very quickly. It immediately felt like it was working but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much as I knew things can change quickly in the first few days. In the hospital I kept asking midwives to check his latch and they kept telling me it looked fine. We went home after 24 hours, and when the milk came in on days two and three, things got a lot more difficult. I was very engorged and suddenly it felt harder for him to latch on, as well as painful. The pain got worse and worse, and my nipples were extremely sore and cracked. At that point we called the community midwife in despair and she agreed to see me on the same day to give advice. All the midwives I came across this time gave both practical advice and emotional support, and were much more pragmatic than advisors I’d come across with Ronnie. They made it clear to me that I should not feel obligated to continue to breastfeed if I didn’t want to. I knew that Frank was getting enough milk from breastfeeding because of his weight, but one midwife said ‘it has to work for both of you, not just him.’ I felt so grateful to her for taking my well-being into account and not just pushing a pro-breastfeeding agenda. 

The support I received helped me to keep going, alongside lots of pain killers and nipple cream. There were some very difficult days where the pain was almost too much to bear and I would dread every feed. After two weeks, even though I’d told myself I didn’t want to express milk this time, I felt that giving some bottles of expressed milk would give me a rest and help my nipples to heal while maintaining my milk supply. So I started giving him about 50% bottles and 50% breast. I felt at an advantage having sought so much advice with my first baby because I knew lots of different methods and positions to try, and eventually the pain started to decrease. Finally, one Saturday after I’d had a nap, I woke up to see the cracks had started to heal. This gave me encouragement to continue. After six weeks I could say my nipples had fully healed and it was no longer painful to feed. I was so pleased I persisted because I now love breastfeeding and the opportunities it gives me to cuddle and bond with Frank. I still can’t multitask as smoothly as the woman I saw in the shopping center, but I can just about breastfeed while eating chocolate and watching Netflix, which is good enough for me!

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What do you think about Clare’s story? We love how she ! Thanks for sharing Clare!

Would you like to share your breastfeeding story our blog? Submit it here!

How Kaitlin Became An Exclusive Pumping Mom

Our story this week comes from Kaitlin. Kaitlin struggled with many of the concerns, fears, and obstacles we all do as nursing moms, and in the end, discovered what worked best for her and her baby girl!

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As a little girl, I placed baby dolls on my flat chest, pretending I was nursing.  My mother nursed me until sometime after my second birthday. There was no doubt in my mind that someday when I had a baby, I would nurse her as well.  When I was pregnant with my May 2020 baby I did all the reading. I signed up for the class, which was scheduled in April of that year and ultimately cancelled due to COVID.  I had some friends who had babies over that past year who had tried to nurse and had some challenges resulting in them quickly turning to formula. I had a lot of respect for these moms and was nervous I wouldn't succeed in my goal either. I mentioned my fears in passing to one of the nurses at my OBGYN’s office. She told me that it was “the most natural thing in the world, and if they failed at it, it’s because they never really wanted to do it in the first place”.  I didn’t agree that my friends didn’t try hard enough per say...but if the nurse wasn’t concerned, why should I be?

And then my baby girl was born. She was beautiful and wonderful and latched right away. Not perfectly, but the nurses helped and got her to fix it time and time again.  But by 24 hours later my nipples were raw, scabbed and bleeding. She would latch and I would cry from the pain. Which is saying something considering the shape my vagina was in.  The night nurse came in and saw my struggles and said “have you considered formula?” I started sobbing even harder because I heard “why don’t you just feed formula instead of breastmilk?” Ultimately I let her have a couple of ounces until I could see the lactation consultant again when she came in the morning. I saw her three times in the hospital and ultimately they gave me a pump and suggested that I pump when I go home for just a couple of days so my nipples could heal.  

I got home two days postpartum and had to figure out this breastpump I hadn’t studied...because I wasn’t supposed to need it yet.  I hadn't been planning on dealing with it until I was nearing my return to work. But in light of the circumstances I quickly became acquainted with the machine and we bottle fed breast milk for days 2-8 of Ophelia’s life until I was healed and I got in to see a local lactation consultant. She was wonderful and dosed me with a bunch of hope and a nipple shield. We were back at it! A baby and her boob. 

The next week we had some struggles and lots of mess with the nipple shield (if you know, you know) but we continued to nurse with it and did gradually wean.  I was delighted that my baby was nursing, just as intended.  The thing is though, we weren’t doing a great job.  Many feedings were a struggle. Sometimes she popped on and off. Often she was overwhelmed by a forceful let down, causing her to choke and cry.  She nursed a lot. I chalked it up to cluster feeding, but several weeks in after the baby tracking app showed me she had been on the breast once an hour for 21 consecutive hours...I knew things really weren’t right.  I had read about ties but I had asked one of the many pediatricians we were shuffled amongst due to COVID and she said “she doesn’t have a tongue tie since she can stick her tongue out past her lips”.  I had let the idea go for a while but I was paying more attention now, I noticed the “clicking” and even to my untrained eye, I could spot at least what appeared to be a lip tie. 

At 8 weeks old we saw a pediatric dentist. Ophelia was diagnosed with “extremely restrictive” lip and tongue ties. The dentist showed me how when she pulled up her top lip it didn’t stretch very far, when in fact it should have been able to come up and cover her nostrils.  She pulled her tongue up and showed me how it couldn’t reach the roof of her mouth.  Weeks of mother’s intuition overshadowed by undereducated doctors proved correct.  We had the procedure done to release the ties with a laser.  It was quick and we tried to nurse right away after.  She struggled, as had become the norm, but I was hopeful it would just take time to learn how her new mouth functioned.  We went home, lubed my finger with coconut oil and did the prescribed stretches every few hours, including overnight, to keep the new open wounds from closing.  

Two more weeks passed without improvement.  She eventually started refusing the breast almost entirely and we wound up doing more pumping and bottle feeding.  Things weren’t better and I didn’t know why. My heart was breaking and my last day of maternity leave at 11 weeks 6 days, we made one last trek to the pediatric dentist to see if perhaps the ties had reformed.  They hadn’t. In fact, they were healed beautifully. My girl was telling me what I hadn’t been open to hearing. Nursing wasn’t for us. Nursing caused us tears, frustration and stress that neither of us needed. We were just surviving, not thriving. I can say now, that I was stubborn. I was selfish and unwilling to settle soon enough for what my baby really needed. The breast was just too difficult for her to master.  

We are eight months postpartum now.  Five months of exclusively pumping, and it has been the best choice I wish I would have made sooner.  My supply has consistently exceeded what she drinks, allowing me to build a current freezer stash of over 1300 ounces.  I went from 6 pumps per day including an overnight one, to 5 shortly after my return to work, and down to 4 pumps per day at 5 months postpartum.  I am prepared to start dropping pumps at 11 months postpartum in order to start weaning as I will have more than enough to get her to a year with the help of frozen milk.

Exclusively pumping is not easy.  Over these months I have spent between two and four hours each day setting up the pump, removing the milk, cleaning up, bottling, bagging and washing parts. I learned the pitcher method and started using a dedicated milk freezer.  I purchased an additional pump for portability as well as the collection cups which unfortunately didn’t work for me. Amazon got my business for extra flanges, duckbills and storage bottles. I’ve worked through clogs including one monster one caused by a bleb that nearly caused me to quit.  I’ve pumped in the car, at work, in a camper, around the fire, at the homes of friends and family.  I could not have done all of this without the full support of an amazing partner, to whom I am extremely grateful. 

When I was pregnant I could have never imagined our breastfeeding journey would lead where it has.  I had no idea that one could exclusively pump and bottle feed.  I’m not sure that if I had, anyone would have convinced me to try it.  But out of desperation, need and love for my child, I continue to hook up every day and do what has become second nature.  My baby is chunky, happy and doesn’t even have a concept of what boobs are for anymore.  She is perfect, even if our path here hasn’t been. 

-A grateful and humbled pumpalicious mama

Check out more from Kaitlin on her Instagram sight - The Fairy Pumpmother

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What do you think about Kaitlin’s story? We think she’s done an amazing job of figuring out what works best for her and her baby! Thanks for sharing Kaitlin!

Would you like to share your breastfeeding story our blog? Submit it here!

Breastfeeding in the PICU

Our story this week comes from Brianna. Read on to hear how she pushed through and persevered to provide breastmilk for her son in a time when she felt otherwise helpless to do anythign for him.

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I grew up in a home where breastfeeding was a frequent conversation topic. My mother is a lactation specialist, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to be helping a new mom with a breastfeeding question at the dinner table. When I had my daughter I knew I wanted to breastfeed, but our feeding journey was a roller coaster from the start. She wasn’t able to latch, she had tongue and lip ties, she fell asleep as soon as we started a feeding, and my milk supply was low. We had her ties reversed, but she still wasn’t able to nurse. I ended up pumping and bottle feeding for the three months of my materiality leave, and when it was time to go back to work we switched to formula. I felt guilty for being so relieved, but I truly hated pumping. It took me a long time to unpack the emotions I felt in those first few months. Ultimately I’ve come to learn that my worth as a woman and a mother isn’t defined by being able to breastfeed. Those months of pumping showed me that I was strong and determined, but they also taught me that my mental health is more important than where the milk comes from. A fed baby is a happy baby.

Fast forward to this past June when I was pregnant with our second baby. I told myself I was not going to put as much pressure on myself as I did last time. I almost didn’t even order a pump through insurance this time around, because I knew I didn’t want to pump again. I wasn’t going back to work because of COVID, so I figured I would breastfeed or bottle feed and that would be that. When our son Milo was born it was immediately different. He was rooting and latched right away. He didn’t have tongue or lip ties, and breastfeeding seemed to click. When we were discharged the next day I was feeling confident and thankful that feeding was looking easier this time.

Unfortunately the next several weeks were filled with frequent visits to the pediatrician. Milo lost 13% of his birth weight and was slow to gain it back. My milk was late to come in and once again my supply seemed low. I kept nursing, supplemented with formula for a few weeks, and by the time he was two months old he was finally gaining well and he was exclusively breastfeeding.

We were glad to be done with frequent doctor visits, until a couple weeks later when Milo woke up and something wasn’t quite right. He was fussy and he didn’t want to eat. He would cry every time I tried to get him to latch, but with a lot of effort he would finally nurse. The next morning he woke up, nursed once, and over the next couple hours we knew something was wrong. He didn’t have a fever, but he was unable to nurse and he seemed lethargic. We saw the pediatrician who believed he was constipated and dehydrated. She sent us to the local emergency room, and we were admitted. When we got to the ER I realized since I hadn’t nursed him all day, I needed to pump. I called my husband to retrieve the Spectra pump I had begrudgingly ordered and stuck in the closet. I pumped that evening and tried to syringe feed Milo, figuring the next day he would nurse again once he was feeling better. However, the next morning he was worse. He was unable to swallow and was making this awful, low, whining cry. He was more lethargic than the day before, and I knew something was very wrong. We were transferred, via ambulance, to a nearby children’s hospital. As the day went on I watched my sweet baby get sicker and sicker. He could not swallow, he could not move, he could hardly cry. At one point, his oxygen saturation dropped, and the pediatric team initiated our transfer from the peds floor to the pediatric ICU. When we arrived on the floor Milo was immediately evaluated by the PICU team. The attending, who I will forever be grateful for, examined him for several minutes and then said, “I think this is botulism.”

My husband arrived just as the team was leaving (up until this point I had been by myself due to COVID policies) and the attending reviewed his plan with us. Our son was presumed to have infant botulism, and the attending recommended we begin the treatment immediately. The drug used to treat botulism is an orphan drug called BabyBIG. It’s only made in California, and each dose must be made and transported as needed. Testing to confirm botulism takes several days, so it is recommended that treatment begin without confirmation when botulism is suspected. The team requested the dose of BabyBIG right away and it arrived in New York roughly 12 hours later. Milo received the dose of BabyBIG almost immediately, and then we just had to wait and hope the diagnosis was correct.

Over the next several days the PICU team ran test after test to rule out other diagnoses (meningitis, genetic disorders, metabolic disorders, etc.) while waiting to confirm botulism. During this time, our son was intubated, sedated, and a feeding tube was placed. Botulism toxin blocks nerve endings from being able to contract muscles, so as the toxin moves through the body it slows digestion, motor movement, swallowing, and breathing; essentially paralysis. When the feeding tube was placed, it was my first chance to feed him in days. My milk supply had tanked, as I was mainly pumping for comfort, but something ignited within me and I was determined. Sitting in a PICU room with a sick baby makes you feel helpless, but pumping was something I could do. He could still have breast milk through that feeding tube. So I got to work. Family members made and dropped off lactation cookies, my mother sent supplements, I got appropriate sized flanges from the hospital's lactation consultant, and I pumped. I pumped every 2-3 hours for the next week and a half, and that precious milk went right into the kangaroo feeding bag connected to his NG tube. As exhausted as I was, I was glad to be able to do anything to take care of him in such a helpless situation.

Four days after receiving the BabyBIG, Milo was showing progress. He was beginning to move his arms and legs. The next day he opened his eyes. A couple days later he was breathing on his own. Slowly his suck started coming back. It was incredible watching everything he lost be reversed as his muscle strength and movement were restored. On the day he was extubated we were finally allowed to hold him again, and that was spectacular. Soon after, he was cleared for non nutritive nursing, so I would pump and then he would latch and essentially “practice nursing” while receiving his NG feed. It was exhausting, but seeing progress each day helped us move forward.

Toward the end of our stay he completed a fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) to determine if he was safe to resume oral feedings. He passed, but they wanted him to start off with bottle feedings. Those feedings were challenging because he wasn’t a bottle fed baby and he didn’t have the stamina to complete a bottle feeding. After a day of bottle feeding attempts, and some advocating on my part, they cleared him for nursing instead. Once again I felt relief as part of my breastfeeding journey, but for totally different reasons. My baby was back in my arms nursing and my hard work to restore my milk supply had paid off.

Many babies with botulism are discharged from the hospital with their feeding tubes, as the swallow can be impacted for a variable amount of time, but after two days of successful nursing Milo’s feeding tube was able to be removed. While that was an exciting moment, nothing compared to the following day when we were discharged, two weeks to the day were admitted.

I’m so in awe of Milo's strength and resiliency. While we were in the hospital several people told us, “he won’t remember any of this.” True, he won’t, but we sure will. I will never forget seeing him in that hospital bed, and I won’t ever take for granted the ability to hold and feed my baby. I’m so proud to have persevered with pumping and that our breastfeeding journey can continue. There will still be hard days; we are parenting a baby and a five year-old after all, but thankfully this little guy has smiles in spades.

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What do you think about Brianna’s story? We think she did an incredible job at doing the best she could for her babies! Thanks for sharing Brianna!

Would you like to share your breastfeeding story our blog? Submit it here!

Katelyn's Story of Formula Feeding and Breastfeeding

Our story this week comes from Katelyn. She had two very different experiences with breastfeeding!

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Hi I am Katelyn, I am a mama of two. I have a 3 year old daughter and a 11 month old son. When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter I knew I wanted to breastfeed her. It was something I thought was important and looked forward to very much. 

When she was born she did not seem to get a good latch the first few feeds and I was new to breastfeeding and wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from her. About 8 hours after she was born they checked her blood sugar and the nurse said it was slightly low and that maybe I should offer her formula to make sure it didn’t drop anymore. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea but I didn’t want to hurt my baby either so we gave her the bottle and she ate it very well but we still continued having issues getting her to latch correctly for breastfeeding. We ended up doing supplement feeding for the first week but she always seemed to do better with the bottle and would sometimes cry when I tried to breastfeed. 

A week after I gave birth to her I got really sick and ended up in the hospital for a few days completely dehydrated because I couldn’t eat or drink anything without it coming back up. With that happening my breastmilk just never came in well. I was so upset and felt like I was failing for a while but eventually that feeling went away. My daughter was fed and healthy and loved and that was the most important thing. When my daughter was about 18 months old we found out we were going to be having another baby. I immediately knew I wanted to try to make this breastfeeding experience better than what I had the first time. 

When my son was born he immediately latched on perfectly and ate for like 3 hours straight. I was amazed. He cluster feed for about the first month and I felt like all I did was feed him. It was definitely harder than I ever thought it would be but I was happy that I was getting to breastfeed him. Things started to get easier as he got older and wasn’t eating quite so often. He never took a bottle and got frustrated when we would try to give it to him. When we introduced solid foods he started taking a sippy cup and then started to have his milk in them sometimes. This experience with him has been so sweet and I am so glad I got to experience breastfeeding. It’s a beautiful part of motherhood that I didn’t really get to experience fully the first time with my daughter. 

I am glad that I got to experience having a formula feed baby as well because now I know that both are ok. Both keep the baby healthy. There are good things about both. My husband could help me a lot more with our daughter because she did take a bottle. I believe that was the hardest part at the beginning with my son when all he did was eat. Every time I had to wake up to feed him because he wouldn’t take the bottle. With my daughter he could feed her a bottle and give me a break. 

My son is now 11 months old and I am planning to start to wean him at 12 months. It is bittersweet as I think about it. It will make things easier on me but at the same time I won't ever get to do it again and that makes me sad. I have learned a lot through this journey of breastfeeding but the biggest and most amazing thing I learned was that God created mothers to have everything they need to keep their baby healthy and alive at birth. Our bodies grow these sweet babies which is so amazing and then when they are born we have the ability to feed them and keep them alive with our bodies by breastfeeding. I find that amazing! Motherhood has been so life changing and my favorite part of life. I am blessed to be a mom.

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What do you think of Katelyn’s story? We love how she was able to focus on the positives with each experience, even though things didn’t go exactly “as planned”. Thanks for sharing Katelyn!

Would you like to share your breastfeeding story our blog? Submit it here!