TheBeanBlog

http://thelittlebeanblog.blogspot.com

I am not looking forward to temporarily losing my ‘relief’ at night, my husband to sleep beside and make me feel safe and just the company of another adult. This may be the end of my battle with breastfeeding and round the clock pumping quest. To be continued…

-Cracked/bleeding and blistered nipples
-Multiple blockages requiring painful therapy
-Milk supply issues that require me to take 20+ pills daily
-Soy/milk intolerance that has restricted my diet to water and sawdust
-Pump issues that have caused chafing and further trauma to my breasts
-Tongue tie diagnosis and surgery
-Bottle preference and refusal to latch

…and our newest ball of fun: Thrush! Charlie and I both have it. Its causing my nipples to itch and basically feel like they are ready to spontaneously combust at any moment. When they aren’t itching and aching I’m getting shooting pains, woohoo! Throw in a few sleepless nights and a colicky baby reacting from something I ate (God knows I’m afraid to eat anything beyond oatmeal right now) and we’re having buckets of fun. Gotta run, the baby is crying….

Go to Trader Joes or your favorite supermarket with a forklift and purchase every prepared frozen dinner and lunch you can stuff in your freezer.  This will come in very handy in those first days and weeks.   I would also recommend paper plates and paper cups.   You’re not going to be interested in doing dishes.

Given you having a boy, be prepared to be pee’d on on a daily basis.  If you have fear about this, get over it now!  You will be surprised how far the little guys can shoot!

Try to support your wife as much as you can.  It will be very hard in the beginning, especially if she breastfeeds.  Overall, she will take the brunt of everything and may be overwhelmed at first.   At times, Kell was weepy and sometimes its hard to figure out how to help.   Sometimes a hug is the best solution.   It will make you feel better too!

If there are any guy things you want to do, now it the time.   So you wanted to organize the garage, forget about it after your little one is here!   The boat has been in the water for 3 weeks, and I haven’t even seen it.  Hopefully it is still floating!

You may feel like you will break the baby.  The  head at first seems like it will roll off!   I try to scoop the head up from underneath when I pick him up.

I like to take my shirt off and lay in bed and put Charlie on my chest for tummy time. This help strengthen his neck.   He loves the warmth and seems to really enjoy it if he’s upset.  I also do a ‘baby massage’ in a clockwise direction to push out his gas!

If you have a night stand next to your bed, don’t worry, it’s not big enough.   Something the size of a small kitchen table may do better!   You’d be surprised now many things need to be within reach at night (formula, diapers, bottles, nipples, burp rags, ear plugs :), and on and on.

Breastfeeding is nothing like I thought it would be.  I figured it’s like a puppy and you place him near the boob and he goes to town.   Not at all!  A lot of mom and baby training and learning.  When he first learned to do it, it was very special. 

Bring good shoes and advil to the hospital on the delivery day.   My feet and legs were sore, but maybe you are more used to being on your feet than I. I felt like a wimp that my legs were sore after all Kell had been through!  Needless to say, I tried to keep it too myself.

Bring a small camera into the OR if by chance your wife needs a c-section.   When the doctor pulled him out, they laid him on the scale and looked to me and said “camera, daddy, camera???”.  Of course, I left it in the room we were in.   No big deal but just a thought.

When I sent out our email announcement with his pictures, I sent it to about 50 people or something like that.   Next time, I am going to add a line that says “I may not be able to get back to everyone who replies to this email.  It’s pretty hectic right now….”  That way you don’t feel obligated to reply to the hundreds of emails that will follow!

Everyone told me it was going to be hard and I thought I knew.   Honestly, it’s tought but the thing people didn’t express to me was how awesome it all is.  It’s the best and hardest thing we’ve ever done.    You guys are really going to enjoy it.   Even when it’s hard, you guys will look at him and your heart will melt.  Good luck!

The other part of me knows perspective and thanks God that I just have a happy, healthy, beautiful baby and an amazing and supportive husband. I’m going to try and focus more on having the right perspective and having gratitude for my blessings.

She examined Charlie and determined that he was tongue tied (a condition that makes breastfeeding very difficult and painful- go figure). Went to the pedi today and she confirmed it. So now my poor baby has to have surgery tomorrow to clip the frenulum (the connective tissue that connects your tongue to your mouth).

The worst part- I am going to have to hold him down while they do this. The other option was to have the procedure performed in a hospital under anesthesia- we weren’t going for that considering the risks for an infant to be ‘put under.’

I’m trying to be positive about this knowing that it is not an ‘optional surgery,’ and that hopefully we’ll be much more successful with breastfeeding after the surgery. I won’t let myself cry about it because there are far worse conditions a baby could have and I’m extremely blessed that Charlie is happy healthy and thriving- he weighs 8 lbs 3 oz now.

The other thing that the LC mentioned was that I should be checked out to see if there is any residual placenta still remaining. This is because my milk supply, despite every effort and intervention I’ve made, isn’t really increasing. So I called my OB and mentioned my situation. I was suprised when they told me to come in for an HCG blood test and ultrasound. I thought with a C-section they would have ‘collected’ everything, but there’s a possibility they missed something. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

4 weeks 1 day

Fast forward to this past Friday. I’ve been attending this fantastic post partum group at my hospital. I found out my hospital maternity store also carried the correct sized flanges that I needed for my pump. I’ll digress here for a moment- I’ve been having a ton of pain from pumping and only recently learned that it’s because I had the wrong sized flange or “nipple shield” as they also are known. So anyways, off I go with Charlie to the maternity store to buy my new, improved, smaller shields.

I see-as I’m paying- this breast pump bustier that promises to leave you hands free. I ask the girl if it really works- and she says Yes! Now listen, if you were attached to a milk machine 8-10 times a day for 20 minutes at a time anything that would allow you more freedom and mobility sounds absolutely amazing.

For those that don’t know: most breast pumps are not hands free, meaning you literally have to hold the bottles that collect the breastmilk so not to lose suction and spill milk all over your lap (which I have done multiple times and nearly cried- yes, over spilled milk- because every drop is so precious at this point).

I ask the girl to throw in a new sexy bustier for me as well. Then it hits me. As I was walking to the car I realize that the very object I just enthusiastically purchased was also the same one I laughed at months ago in the magazine. Ah, the irony. Here’s a shot of the newest addition to my lingerie drawyer:

Meow!

That means that, while I was allowed to limit my dairy intake before, now I have to completely eradicate any trace of dairy (and soy) from my diet now in order to keep Charlie happy and healthy. Charlie’s doctor may want to put him on a different formula yet again (more elemental) and that probably means more $$$. It motivates me even more to try and be successful with the breastfeeding.

Also added to the list of foods I’m not allowed to eat- anything from a cow (including beef), soy (obviously), chocolate-that brings a tear to my eye, caffienated anything, acidic fruits, most grains and nuts, spicy foods and pretty much every type of veggie I like (they are all too gassy for Charlie’s tummy). Thinking it won’t be hard to lose those last few pounds of pregnancy weight- because there’s not much I can eat ha, ha! I’m starting to feel like a glutton for punishment.

I do have to say that despite all the obstacles we’ve hit, there is a silver lining for Mommy. I lost about 20lbs in less than two weeks- and I’m thinking I’ve lost more since I was last weighed at the docs, because my maternity jeans are getting looser.

Tonight I will be baking cookies with light olive oil instead of butter because I cannot go a day without the sweet, warm and chewy goodness of cookies.

Last night as Joe and I were spending time playing with the baby I went to push a stray strand of hair behind my ear and I, err, felt something. I scratched my ear and looked in my hand to find a nice chunk of dial soap. I seriously had half a bar of soap stuck behind my ear. The real Mom moment: When I turned to Joe and said, “At least it’s not spit up.”

The trouble for me began when I was not able to breastfeed Charlie immediately after my c-section. He fell into a deep ’slumber’ after I came out of recovery and although I tried that night several times, he wasn’t latching. The next morning Charlie was circumcised and was even more woozy. Around noon time I had a lactation consultant help me try again and this time we were somewhat successful, even though he was falling asleep every couple minutes. Although I had a setback when my pain got ahead of me and, not being aware that I had to request pain medication, I was a mess towards the early afternoon and most of the night.

The rest of my hospital stay I made sure I was available “on demand” for Charlie around the clock. I started to develop blisters on my nipples, but hearing stories from other women, I knew it would be painful so I just took it. Poor Charlie ended up spitting up some of his feedings because there was so much blood he had taken in.

We came home on Friday, May 2nd and I continued to try and nurse him around the clock. Friday night we settled in around 9:30 pm with Charlie in his bassinet beside me. At ten he was crying to eat so I nursed him for about a half hour, burped him and then put him down to rest. Fifteen minutes passed and he was crying again, and rooting like crazy so I put him on my other side and went for another half hour. This was how the whole evening played out from 10pm until 7am, he wanted to nurse.

I had read that newborns can ‘cluster feed’ to try and bring your milk in more and the lactation consultant told me he wouldn’t eat if he wasn’t hungry so I didn’t stop him. Joe stayed up with me most of that night, but at about 3am I told him to get some rest. I remember Joe waking up at 5am and seeing me sway with Charlie in my arms at the edge of the bed. Joe said, “Oh no you’re still awake,” and then I burst into tears!

Saturday played out similarly with tons of feedings and at this point my breasts ached so badly I thought they might fall off. Sunday we kept Charlie up for most of the day and he slept better that night, but I was beginning to dread each feeding because the pain so white searing hot.

Monday we had our first pediatrician appointment and my group has a lactation consultant so she can in to visit with me as well. She took one look at my chest and told me that I needed to start pumping exclusively to allow myself to heal. In addition to that she told me I had multiple blockages and should see a therapist about it. The final blow was that poor Charlie had lost another ounce and I would need to start supplementing with formula. I left the office in tears feeling quite defeated- oh and with a prescrip for nipple ointment-oy.

I had the appointment for ultrasound therapy to clear out my blockages on Wednesday (between Monday and Wednesday I was still a mess physically with the pain and pumping around the clock was not helping with the extreme sleep deprivation). The only time they could fit me in was 7:15am in a town that was a half hour from our house. Totally insane but I was desperate for help so I went.

The therapist was extremely cruel to me. She berated me for showing up on time, saying I should have arrived at 7am to fill out paperwork and that she would not be able to give me a full treatment because of that. I had a breakdown (probably my 20th!) in the patient room and basically begged her to help me. If I wasn’t so desperate to be out of pain I would have told her off. Looking back now I can’t believe how awful she was, to a new mom in such a vulnerable position.

Anyways she gives me the treatment and what she calls is a “massage” after the treatment. Says it will be slightly uncomfortable. The word “massage” implies soothing and gentleness to me. This was much closer to a form of medieval torture. One of the worst experiences of my life. Again I digress…

This is where things start to get fuzzy for me, because, this journey as I have called it, has been marked with so many obstacles that I’d like to forget most of it. The pain continues, I call local La Leche League contacts, I have a lactation consultant make a house call, call the hospital nurse line and my pediatrician for help as well. The lactation consultant initially prescribes fenugreek and blessed thistle, two herbal supplements to help increase milk production. These, in addition to goat’s rue (prescribed to me at a later time) are the reason for my post title. I felt like I needed to dance naked by a waning moon-wiccan style- to try and make this breastfeeding thing work.

In the interim of all of this Charlie proves to be both milk and soy intolerant, so the formulas he was on caused him a lot of grief as well and kept us up most nights (gagging, mucousy, painful gas). I felt and still feel awful for my poor baby, as he continues trying to adjust to the Alimentum formula and is having trouble.

I am now on domperidone (a prescription med) to try and up my milk supply, in addition to pumping around the clock. The pumping has been difficult and painful still because I haven’t been able to find a “flange” that fits my breasts and that has led to chafing and yet more pain. Also, having to pump around the clock and then feed the baby, change the baby and feed myself and then start the cycle again takes up the whole day and doesn’t leave much time for rest. So now you know why I have been incommunicado for quite a while.

I must say that there have been several times in this journey where I have wanted to quit because of the pain mostly. The pain I experienced from the c-section (which was pretty intense) pales in comparison to the pain I’ve had with BFing. Maybe it’s also because it’s coupled with a pain in my heart for this being so tough, something I wanted so desperately to work, to be able to bond with my sweet little boy and nourish him at the same time. I haven’t given up yet, I keep thinking back on everything I’ve gone through so far.

I went to a post partum class at my hospital on Friday. It was great to get out and to talk with other women going through similar situations. I have to admit that I felt a pang of jealousy for those women though, because every single one of them breeastfed their baby at some point during the class. Although I also felt a bit of hope when one woman told me that she had to pump exclusively for 5 weeks and now was successfully breastfeeding exclusively. I hope I can be a success story too.

3 weeks old.