My plans were to breastfeed from birth however nothing ever really goes as planned. After two and a half months in the hospital on bedrest my beautiful baby girl was born six weeks early. She had been fighting to arrive and couldn't wait any longer. I remember the doctor asking me if I wanted to breastfeed and of course I said yes. Unfortunately she starting losing color during our first encounter and had to be rushed to the NICU. I can't begin to describe how much that hurt.
After three weeks I was given the opportunity to put her to breast for the first time. I had met with a lactation consultant, actually two. The first one was very discouraging. She told me I wasn't pumping enough milk and would need to supplement. Also I was told that any dietary changes were old wives tales and not at all effective in increasing my supply. I questioned in my mind why this woman chose this profession. While I pumped looking at pics of Z, I cried hysterically thinking she must have known because she was the specialist. After a few days I made another appointment and met the other LC. She was the ray of sunshine I needed to continue pumping in hopes that one day I could breastfeed. Every attempt to put my baby to breast was successful when I had a nurse or LC present. Once Z came home it was as if we had never even tried.
I experienced sore nipples to a point of bleeding. For some reason I couldn't get her to latch though she was practically doing it on her own. The pain had caused me to be hesitant and once again I found myself crying hysterically whenever I put her to breast or pumped. Eventually I stopped putting her to breast and got on a crazy schedule of pumping while supplementing with formula. Though my baby slept all night, I was good to get three hours of sleep at a time.
When I got my car fixed I started going back to my breastfeeding support groups. By this time I had a three month old and just wanted to make sure it wasn't too late. With help from the peer counselors, I was able to get a proper latch on my own. We were well on our way to exclusively breastfeeding until the teething started and I had to return the hospital grade pump. At first I was keeping up using my manual pump and nursing on demand. Unfortunately she started a nursing strike and it threw me off. I purchased a double electric pump and felt like I could keep it going. Shortly after my purchase I got sick and lost a few days of pumping which quickly became a couple weeks. Now I'm in the process of relactating in hopes that we can breastfeed again.
