Part II of Terri’s story is here! If you haven’t read Part I yet, head on over HERE and check it out first! We love to share breastfeeding stories and journeys on our Facebook and Instagram pages, but we recently decided that because there is SO much more to most of our stories than a short paragraph can tell, we’re planning to open up our blog for our customers and followers to share their breastfeeding journeys. The first story comes to us from our administrative assistant, Terri. She’s had three babies, and three completely different feeding experiences! If you’d like to share your breastfeeding story on our blog, please send an email to hello@milkandhoney.jewelry with the subject line “Breastfeeding Story”, and we will get back to you!
So you remember I said I had 3 kids in part 1, right? Not long after my boys turned 6 & 4, I found out I was pregnant with baby #3. Surprise! Not only was this baby completely different in her birth story than both boys, but *shocker*, so was my breastfeeding journey with her. My youngest (and definitely my last) was born at 38 weeks and 3 days after induction due to acute preeclampsia. My blood pressure (which had been perfectly fine throughout my entire pregnancy) suddenly jumped up to 190/100, sending me straight to the hospital and for an immediate induction. When baby was born, she was totally healthy, despite the fact that she was covered in meconium. I snuggled her right away and had immediate skin-to-skin (the nurses were great at cleaning her up while I was holding her). I put her to breast fairly quickly, but she had some of the same issues as my oldest and had trouble latching. I was able to recall much of what I had learned 6 years prior with my son and did everything I could think of to get her to latch well. We had an amazing lactation consultant come in and work with us. She was able to get her to latch, but baby girl wouldn’t stay latched for long. My husband even went down to the hospital shop and bought a nipple shield, but she wouldn’t take that, either. We kept at it and I would pump or hand express in between visits from the lactation consultant. We worked at syringe feeding and tube feeding her my expressed milk, but I wasn’t able to get much to give her.
I remember the night I was finally wheeled from the labor & delivery floor to the mother/baby floor. I got settled, my husband left to take care of the boys at home, the nurse took the baby so I could have a break to shower, eat, and rest before trying to nurse again. I remember taking a real shower for the first time in days (I had been on the labor & delivery floor for 4 days due to the medication they gave me for the preeclampsia). I remember eating that plate of semi-warm chicken and cold broccoli, but enjoying that moment of quiet as it was the first I’d had in so long. I remember the nurse bringing my daughter back in to me so I could nurse her and she was so supportive and helpful in trying to help me get her to latch. After about an hour, baby girl was tired and fell asleep, so the nurse told me to rest and we would try again later.
Things had been hard both physically and emotionally throughout my whole stay at the hospital, but it wasn’t until this point that things got really hard and took an even more emotional toll on me. Baby girl woke up a couple hours or so later, hungry. She was crying and I was trying so hard to get her to latch. I called the nurse in to help, but it was the beginning of a new shift, so she was busy with her beginning of shift responsibilities. When she finally came in, I had been trying to get baby girl to latch and stay latched for over 2 hours - with baby girl starting to scream when she would fall off. She worked with me for a minute before quickly taking baby girl out of the room saying we both needed to calm down before trying again. She left so quickly, I didn’t really have time to think or protest, but was left crying in that hospital room because I knew that at this point, my baby hadn’t ever had a good latch and although she had been fed a bit here and there through a syringe and tube, she wasn’t getting much in her little belly.
The nurse returned a bit later with my baby and a bottle, telling me the doctor said it was time to supplement as baby girl hadn’t had a bowel movement since day 1 (it was now nearing day 5, I think), she had lost too much weight, and she was becoming jaundice. The nurse didn’t stay long (it was a really busy time on both L&D and mother/baby - every room was full!) and I was left holding my baby girl and a bottle. I cried as I fed her that bottle - mournful that I couldn’t nurse my daughter, but also so thankful that I lived in a time when formula was readily available and my daughter could still eat! I was full of so many emotions! When my husband returned to the hospital the next morning, we had a long discussion about what to do. I had tried to pump for my daughter, but I just wasn’t producing much and the stress of it all was making my blood pressure go back up into dangerous numbers again (although delivery is the “cure” for preeclampsia, it can still take weeks for your blood pressure to normalize after delivery). My husband felt very strongly that the best thing for our family was to give our baby girl formula so that I could fully recover from birth without the added stress of breastfeeding or pumping. That was one of the hardest decisions for me to walk out. I was so thankful for the amazing lactation consultant who supported me in this decision. While we both knew the importance of breastfeeding, she never pushed me or pressured me, just simply supported our decision to feed baby girl formula from day 5 on. I was also so thankful for my two midwives who supported my decision to formula feed. They really helped me talk through the process after the fact and accept the decision we had made.
I’ve often looked back at that time and wondered if I had just try to stick it out, if I would have eventually made breastfeeding work with my daughter. The conclusion I keep coming to is this: I probably would have eventually made it, but my health and the sanity of my family would have been severely compromised. I do wish things had been different, but they weren’t, and I’ve learned to be OK with that. While I may not have had a very successful breastfeeding journey with my daughter, I did the best I could and I know that at the end of the day, my daughter needed me healthy more than she needed my breast milk. I am proud of the journey I had with my daughter. And I am proud that I can say I did my best with each of my children. I am thankful I was surrounded by an amazing support system with all 3 kiddos. And most importantly, I am thankful for the lessons I learned through each experience: I can do hard things when I set my mind to it; there’s a time to let go of things, even when that thing is “good”; and sometimes, putting my kids first looks like putting myself first. Oh, and not to judge others in the decision they’ve made. It’s easy to look at other people in their situations are think we would have made a different choice, but you truly never know someone’s whole story and why they made the choices they did. I am proud of my journey!
