Proud of Myself
I've been working really hard to get my milk supply back up... pumping every 1.5-3 hours (which is above and beyond what the lactation consultant told me to do), drinking Mother's Milk tea 3 times a day, eating oatmeal almost every day, and most recently drinking a crap ton of water, trying to eat more, and having the suction on the pump at max (which hurts... but it's worth it for the milk). I read about this drug called Domperidone that increases your milk supply, too, but a doctor can't prescribe it in the U.S. I've heard that there are ways around that, though, so I'm going to ask one of the consultants about how I might obtain it. I'm wary about using drugs long-term, but apparently a miniscule amount gets into your milk-- so miniscule that they wouldn't expect to see any side effects in babies at all. And I still feel like it would be less harmful than formula. I don't judge mothers who use formula, but that doesn't mean that I want to use it. There is an overwhelming amount of pressure to breastfeed out there. There is so much literature about how harmful formula is to babies, and how superior breast milk is. It's really depressing, when you're struggling to provide breast milk. I can see why there are so many moms out there feeling depressed and guilty about using formula :-( Hell, I feel bad for even the 3 or so times Adrienne's had it. The first time, the hospital gave her some without our consent. Now I feel like they shouldn't have been able to do that without asking, first... but what's done is done. Some really hardcore pro-breastfeeding people say that even one serving can do irreversible danmage to a baby's gut, but I find it hard to believe that a couple of times would be too harmful if you feed breast milk the rest of the time for, say, 6 months. I still feel like I lack the motivation necessary to really try to get her back on the breast, though... the pump is so much easier and faster. I go back and forth about getting help with that. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to the birth and, knowing what I know now, try breastfeeding again. They should have told me that 1) having a yeast infection during the birth may cause you and baby to have thrush, so look out for that and 2) pumping exclusively can detrimentally affect your milk supply and 3) USE A NIPPLE SHIELD until you recover from injuries and your baby learns to properly latch. I do not understand why they don't have nipple shields on hand. So much of a mom having a lasting positive breastfeeding experience depends on her first experience with it in the hospital. If the staff sucks at doing its job, it can rob a mother and baby of something so important. I feel like this is what happened with me. Well, next time I will know better. This time, I will salvage what I can.
We qualified for WIC, and we just "bought" groceries and formula with most of this month's checks a couple of days ago. If I could avoid cracking open a single canister of formula, though, I would. That crap is good 'til she is a year and seven months old, anyway. I would really like to try to provide as much breast milk as possible until she is definitely 6 months old, and maybe even a year. We'll see. We have checks for almost $200 in formula for free, though... that's crazy. Hopefully we can use very little.
We qualified for WIC, and we just "bought" groceries and formula with most of this month's checks a couple of days ago. If I could avoid cracking open a single canister of formula, though, I would. That crap is good 'til she is a year and seven months old, anyway. I would really like to try to provide as much breast milk as possible until she is definitely 6 months old, and maybe even a year. We'll see. We have checks for almost $200 in formula for free, though... that's crazy. Hopefully we can use very little.