my nursing story for adopt-a-mom: keelyerin

keelyerin

my nursing story for adopt-a-mom

Apr 10, 2008 16:04

Of course I would nurse my babies! I was nursed until just before my second birthday when I decided I didn't want to do that any more. My mom had fought sugar-pushing grandmas, her mother wanting to put juice with protein powder in my bottle, and everyone around her with the "are you STILL nursing??" questions. I figured that it would be cake! I was 28 years later with so much more support than she had! How could it not be easy? Sure, I can say it's easy NOW, what with a baby who can latch himself in the dark, nipples that are used to being used, and the superhuman ability to nurse, eat, chat, get out my wallet, and pay the check all without so much as a receiving blanket to cover me. Thankfully, it didn't start out easy - if it had, I might never have realized how strong I could be or how fulfilling overcoming the obstacles would be.

The beginning from my birth story: In about 4 pushes (which took longer than it seems, as my contractions were not back to back) he was out. I didn't have my glasses, so I could just see that he was kind of gray and he was crying. (They told me later that the little acrobat's cord was wrapped twice around his neck.)The doctor immediately clamped and cut the cord (didn't ask Brandon if he wanted to) and handed him off to be put in the warmer. The nurse on my left dropped my leg, which flopped over because of the mag sulf and the epi. Brandon went immediately to the warmer and didn't leave Wiley's side again until they were both back in the room hours later. People were standing all around the warmer and I couldn't see - didn't have my glasses anyway, but I tried. Someone asked people to move so I could see, and only one person did and she wasn't standing anywhere that actually blocked him, so I still couldn't see. Sena (my homebirth midwife who was still with me for the hospital birth) made them bring him to me to try and nurse, but he wasn't ready yet and they were hovering ready to grab him back, so they took him again after about 30 seconds. I noticed that there were even more people in the room, and I mentioned to Arian (intern homebirth midwife) that there were a lot of people there. Another nurse asked if I'd like her to have the students(!) who had come in to watch who knows when leave, and Arian told her what I had said. The nurse shooed them away just as Brandon and the NICU/Nursery people went away with Wiley. On the way out someone shoved him in my face and told me to kiss him.

About 2 hours after the delivery just as I got a little settled in, Brandon and Nurse Alina from the nursery came in with Wiley. Alina was great. She told me that his glucose level was low, so she wanted me to nurse him, and his temperature wasn't regulating super well yet, so she got warm blankets and put him skin to skin with me to see if we could get it up. She showed me a nursing hold (football hold) and how to get him to latch, and we were successful with our nursing start. His glucose went up to 72 from the 30's, so clearly he was getting something. He was still not up to temperature, so she asked if she could take him back to the nursery for a half an hour to warm him in the warmer. I agreed because I trusted her to take good care of him. Brandon and I tried to get some sleep, but I could not fall asleep. Honestly, it felt like I had forgotten how - that's the best way to describe it - because as tired as I was, my mind was just racing and I was so out of it. Alina brought Wiley back, and after that he was never out of the sight of Brandon or me. I still couldn't get up, and I was told that if Brandon left and I was alone, Wiley would have to go to the nursery. I did not let Brandon leave.

(my recollection of what day these things all happened is a little fuzzy)
At some point Gina, one of the lactation consultants brought in a pump kit and a Medela Symphony hospital pump so that I could start working to bring my milk in. She had a trainee or intern person with her, and they brought the pump because the hospital pediatricians were talking supplementation because of his prematurity, size, and weight loss. I asked about SNS and syringe feeding, and for the time being they were on board with the syringe at least. There wasn't an SNS available to me (?) and I didn't know where to get one and they didn't offer that information (I do know now, if it were to ever come up for us again!). I discussed my reluctance to use a bottle, and along with the syringe Gina brought us a slow-flow nipple. We refused formula, but luckily we delivered at the hospital with an on-site mother's milk bank (or my husband would have had to drive to wherever one was!). While I pumped that first time they left the room, and about 5 minutes into it the intern came back with about 10 pages printed from La Leche League's website regarding supplementation. I was really touched and pleased that she had paid attention to my concerns and searched out the authority to alleviate them. That first pumping session was incredibly fruitful - I got a WHOLE DROP of colostrum on the edge of one of the flutes. LC Gina made sure that drop got into Wiley (she was a master of the syringe!) Unfortunately, we didn't have Gina for the rest of our hospital stay.

Ultimately they had me nursing (though some of the later LCs were adamantly against how much I was nursing him because it was "using calories" that he needed to grow (but I told them where to stick it and kept nursing! - even when he was under the bili lights - I had him out every two hours and we had skin to skin and nursing and cuddling before he'd go back in - they tried to make me keep those instances short, preferring that I just gave a bottle instead of nursing. I really had to fight for our nursing relationship.), pumping, giving him what I'd pumped after the last feeding for the next feeding, and supplementing with donor breastmilk from the milk bank. We ended up buying milk from the milk bank to take home and renting a pump because they scared me so much that I wasn't going to work properly - even armed with all of the support outside of the hospital and the metric ton of research I had done prior to the birth.

Highlights of the rest of our stay (from my birth story - forgive the blue parts, i was a bit angry...):

-Evil freezing cold handed "lactation consultant" Kathy who was the worst of the bunch of crappy pseudo-lactation consultants at the hospital who was extremely mean. She and her icy hands tried to squeeze colostrum or what have you from me and it HURT. Doesn't hurt when I express. Then told me that my right breast was more mature than my left and my left may never get milk (?) and really I might not be able to nurse because it might take a long time for the milk, which really might never come in on either side. Also that we shouldn't be using our slow-flow nipple on the supplementation bottle because nipple confusion was "just a theory." Oh, and when my milk started to come in, she did her normal feeding time barge into our room and I was very excited because Wiley had nursed a lot and I felt like he got a lot - he was really swallowing - and when I told her that he got a lot she said (I quote) "He's not getting as much as you wish he was, honey." How supportive. I said that I was sure he was doing great. So, as I'm undoing him from that side, she needs to find another thing to be discouraging about, so she said "Well, but remember you have to have a good latch, the nipple shouldn't look flat," and he undid and I showed her my nipple which was perfectly round and totally non compressed because he has a great latch. "Well, that's good, I guess." she says. Then as I was in the process of trying to latch him onto the other side and aghast at what she had just said to me, she then asked if I wanted a drop of my pumped colostrum from the bottle to put on my nipple to get him to latch. I said that I was expressing it onto my nipple and she didn't believe me and I pointed my nipple at her and squirted a whole bunch out (because she totally didn't believe that my milk or anything was there or coming in or had come in, etc), and she was like, "Oh."

I feel completely sympathetic for women who go in and give birth in the hospital and are made to feel as if they cannot nurse or that it is too difficult or that they are in some way defective. I was armed with tons of information, had great outside of the hospital support, but the whole experience was so demoralizing topped off with the fact that I was separated from him for so long after birth that they bring this baby back to me and I never got that, "omg, my baby" thing. I didn't cry when he was born. I couldn't even see him. It was awful. If I had cried it would have been for how scary and hurty and sick it all was. I didn't have the wherewithal to bond with him until much later when the IVs all came out.

-Evil last day pediatrician who barged into the room armed with the knowledge given from the nurse on duty that Wiley had lost 300 grams. He interpreted that as he had lost 300 grams in the previous 24 hours, when it was the total lost from birth to that moment. He didn't bother looking at the chart or anything and basically accused us of STARVING our child. He was EXTREMELY hostile. I had to gather myself from my total shocked silence and tell him to LOOK AT THE FUCKING CHART and see that his weight had stabilized and that we were supplementing with every feeding and that he had tons of input and output because we had to tell the nurses every poo, pee, and how many cc's and minutes at each breast per feeding. In the previous 24 hours he had only lost 8 grams, which was better than 100 the 24 hours before and 200 the 24 before that. He did finally look at the chart, but he never dropped his attitude that Brandon and I were somehow crazy child abusers who refused to feed our child and literally put it in the discharge instructions that we had to have a verifiable appointment at our doctor for him to be weighed both the next day and the day after before we could be discharged. Asshole. For his information, we only supplemented the day we came home. By the next day we were only breastfeeding and by 2 weeks and 2 days Wiley was above his birthweight having been consistently gaining an ounce or more a day.

-The doctor from the delivery coming to check in and telling us that the milk from the milk bank is useless and that she doesn't even know why they have it.

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When we got home from hospital we used one container of the donor milk - about 4 ounces. After that I followed my gut and just nursed and nursed and nursed. My midwife came every other day, and gave us such tremendous help with both nursing holds and latch that Wiley and I really *got it* and were off and running. He came home at 4lbs 7oz and kept gaining and gaining and gaining.

The three week growth spurt was one of the hardest things I've ever gotten through :) I really felt like he was permanently attached to my nipples and I was being drained of everything I had in me! And more! My nipples hurt, I was tired, and I absolutely dreaded the coming of night. Somehow during the day even with the lack of sleep I could make it because it was light. Night when I should have been sleeping and I was NOT, I thought I'd never make it. I was afraid in the side-lying nursing position both because of his tiny tiny size and that he somehow wasn't getting enough milk. When I finally mastered it, nights became SO MUCH EASIER and we both slept incredibly well. We coslept until just about a week before he was 5 months and his restlessness and nightwaking (and refusing the breast during the extra night wakes) made us think he might be ready for his own space. He's been in his crib since then and sleeps so much better :) We usually only have one nursing session a night now about 6 hours in and then he zonks right back out. It's taught me a lot about supply and demand and relieving engorgement, let me tell you :)

We've also been to see a pediatric gastroenterologist for a dairy intolerance. I started noticing small bits of blood in his poo, brought it to the attention of the pediatrician, and we watched and waited. In all other ways he was healthy, happy, and normal, so she wasn't extremely concerned. (I was, but I'm the mama and that's my job.) He wasn't having difficulty passing the poo - the diaper with the most blood in it (still a very tiny amount) had been a poo he smiled through on my lap. Ultimately when it became more frequent we were referred to the GI doc and I cut out all dairy prior to our appointment to see if that would help. It did, and though I was afraid of coming into the appointment and hearing, "well, you'd better switch to soy formula" or some such thing and having to fight for our nursing, the doc was ecstatic that I planned to extended nurse, and agreed with me that invasive testing wasn't necessary as long as I was okay to give up all the dairy.

I can hardly believe it when I look at pictures of him early in life. He was so miniscule. I have created a robust and happy, strong and big, sweet and alert little human with just what comes from my body. I can't think of anything that I've done or ever will do that I'm more proud of. We'll nurse until he's done, and I plan to tandem nurse when we have future babies. I've nursed all over the place - from standing in line at the post office to the finance office of the car dealership while signing the papers for our new car. Negative comments from some unsupportive family roll off my back and have tapered off once they've seen how amazing the little guy is and how well he's grown. I'm a superwoman! There's no other way to put it! How freaking awesome is it that we get to do this? :)

some pictures :)

First nursing/nursing at about 4 months in uno chicago pizza