17-10-2008 - My Breastfeeding Adventure

My mood while writing this blog: Happy

I just want to share my breastfeeding adventure so that perhaps some other Moms can get inspiration to keep on trying and to not give up. It was a HUGE task and I shed MANY tears over the 7 weeks but now Ava and I are both much happier with each other!

So when Ava was born she had some bruising and a gash on her head. Bruising was because my induction worked so well that my uterus was trying to push her out before my cervix was even close to dilated enough. The gash was because I guess she got poked when my doctor broke my water. We didn't think anything of it until a couple weeks later. She was immediately placed on my chest and after about an hour we tried to breastfeed.

Ava would not tolerate being held in a feeding position. She somewhat took to the football hold but even then she screamed bloody murder after only a couple minutes. She wouldn't even open her mouth to feed. We tried a nipple shield, thinking maybe she was frustrated that my nipples were too flat. She would suck the nipple shield for only a couple minutes before going back to screaming. I ended up pumping colustrum and feeding her with a cup.

We were in the hospital for about 3 days after her birth. Nurses were constantly working with me to get her breastfeeding. I kept pumping and feeding her with a cup until I finally said that the cup was too much of a hassle and that I'd prefer bottles. What a mistake that was. After she'd had the bottle she refused to take even the nipple shield. I kept trying though. Every feed I would try her on the bare breast for a few minutes, then with the nipple shield, and then finally I would give her a bottle of pumped breast milk. I continued like that for about a week after going home from the hospital.

Then I got tired. Tired of making my baby scream at me. Although she was otherwise a very happy baby who loved to be held and cuddled, she STILL would not tolerate being at the breast. Enter lactation consultant, Diane. She had never seen a baby so adamantly against being at the breast. Ava would scream and push away and kick her legs and do anything she could to fight me. It was unreal. Diane would spend at least an hour with me about twice a week. First we would try her in a cradle hold. Then football hold. Then I would pump about an ounce of milk and give it to her by the bottle and take the bite off her hunger. Then we'd try again. Nothing would work. We ultimately decided after a couple weeks that maybe it was because her bruising on her head was giving her a headache so she was uncomfortable in that position, but we're not sure on that.

One day as I was getting out of the shower I heard Ava screaming. She was so frantic that I just threw a towel on, picked her up and immediately she latched on. I started crying. Then of course about 10 minutes later the flow slowed down and she refused to continue. Then I had to give her a bottle. Her next feed I tried her on the breast again, she refused, so I tried the nipple shield and she took it beautifully. After that, she continued to nurse fabulously with the nipple shield for about a week.

Only problem there was that all of a sudden in the evenings she was VERY fussy. I assumed it was colic for a few days but then I got a funny feeling that something wasn't right. Diane had been on vacation for that week so luckily I got that funny feeling on her first day back, so she came out right away to see me and sure enough, Ava had been losing weight. While I'd been feeding with the shield I'd also stopped pumping as I thought I didn't need to, but the shield wasn't allowing enough stimulation to my breast and I lost most of my milk. Sooo back to pumping every 2 hours I went, while taking 4 Fenugreek every 4 hours plus 3 tabs of Domperidone every 8 hours, and I pretty much gave up hope that I'd ever breastfeed. I continued to feed her with the nipple shield, but after a feed I would pump to empty my breasts and feed her what I pumped with a bottle.

Then another day of all this nonsense, again I was getting out of the shower and Ava was frantically screaming for me. I picked her up and again put her to the bare breast and she took it no problem. She continued to feed until she pulled herself off and fell asleep. I pumped, stored about an ounce after that feed and was VERY happy. That first feed was about 45 minutes long. The next couple days she breastfed great without a shield. I got over confident and thought, well I want to see how much she's getting. So I woke up about 20 minutes before she usually did, had her father handy to calm her if she did wake up earlier, and I pumped and fed her that bottle once she woke up. After that, back to square one. She wouldn't even take the nipple shield anymore.

So naturally I beat myself up for that stupid move and sought out any option I could think of to get milk into her without giving her a bottle. First Diane had me try the SNS system, whereby you have baby at the breast, feed a tube through the corner of the mouth and they suck milk from a bottle so they get the idea that milk comes from the breast. It didn't work for me, Ava never latched well enough to get any milk. Although I was very surprised at how well she tolerated the tube being put in her mouth and stuff. She'd come a very long way from where she'd been at birth.

With the SNS system I was given a syringe to clean the tube with. I had the idea to pump and feed Ava with the syringe, so she wouldn't continue with bad sucking habits. She hated the syringe, which was good because it motivated her to get back on the breast. Luckily this major fight happened over the September long weekend so I wasn't as concerned about keeping my boyfriend up at night. It took 3 hours in the middle of the night and a lot of tears, but finally I got her to take the bare nipple after she'd cried herself to sleep and woken back up, and it has never been a problem since.... of course now I'm absolutely terrified to ever supplement or to leave Ava with a sitter because I do NOT want to reintroduce a bottle lol.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention was at first when she started breastfeeding, I'd noticed that position was a huge thing for her. While on one side I would put her on in the cradle hold, on the other side I had to have her pretty much sitting between my legs before she'd latch. It was very strange. Thankfully she got over that I'm now able to just feed in the cradle hold.

It's important to remember that it often takes babies up to 8 weeks to get the hang of it, so if you have the patience, definitely stick it out, she will get it eventually if she's had it before. Ava still doesn't have a perfect latch, but she's very much got a mind of her own and will not take gentle suggestions lol. Her latch is shallow, but she's been consistently gaining over an ounce a day for the past month so I've decided, as long as it doesn't hurt me, I'll let her do what she wants!