Hello! Hey, it’s Me.

Delaney’s Breastfeeding Story

Thank you Lotus for forcing me to post this!  I hope to have time this evening to document Colin’s breastfeeding relationship, but we’ll see.  I’ll write it out no matter what, but it just might not be in time for this super cool carnival.  Check out Sarcastic Mom for more (breast)feeding stories.

Delaney was born after 23 hours of very long, very hard, high-risk labor. We were induced with pitocin and given multiple drugs due to my preeclampsia. Most importantly, we were given magnesium sulfate throughout my entire labor to control my blood pressure, which was around 190/110 when I was induced.

She was born in the “delivery room” (i.e. the surgery suite as I was prepped for a cesarean, but luckily didn’t have one!) around noon. We were immediately taken back to our labor room after Delaney was fully evaluated. She had a very difficult birth! Her heart rate was all over the board. I had multiple drugs. I had an epidural 9 hours into labor. I was vomiting regularly, which caused my uterus to compress (or something like this) and she vegeled during each episode. We had internal fetal monitoring. I had an amnio-infusion…etc. etc. etc.

I had a rough time recovering from the epidural, but I was able to be with Delaney. My midwife helped her nurse for the first time within an hour after her birth. I thought I was so prepared! I knew exactly what to do - I went to the class, read the books, watched the movies, right? Ha! Little did I know! I didn’t know what the heck I was doing the first time we tried to nurse. She was very tired, very lethargic, very drugged. It took her a while to latch on, but we managed.

Before we were even transfered to the post partum ward, Delaney developed jaundice. This was approximately 12 hours after her birth. Needless to say, this was worrisome to our doctors! She remained very lethargic from the drugs and now with the jaundice. She still had a hard time nursing for extended periods of time; she would fall asleep almost immediately and had a very weak suck.

I was in the hospital for 2 and a half days after her birth. We received lots of help from the nursery nurses in continuing our breastfeeding relationship. Because of the doctor’s concern about her early jaundice and her elevated biliruben levels, they recommended giving her formula in addition to pumped colostrum and nursing. I wish I had known then what I know now! While we were in the hospital, Delaney remained lethargic and was administered phototherapy in the nursery. The nursery nurses brought her to us ever 2.5 to 3 hours for nursing, then supplemented her with 15 cc’s of formula after each nursing. Between nursing sessions, I would pump with an Ameda SMB in the hospital. We supplemented her on the bre@st with the pumped colostrum.

When she was 2 days old, we were finally discharged with a bililight to use at home and instructions to follow up with our pediatrician daily to monitor her biliruben level. I remember getting home and whipping out my Boppy pillow. Nursing was more comfortable, but that “What the heck am I doing” feeling quickly returned. She was still very sleepy as her biliruben count was near 20 and she her suck was weak. We supplemented her maybe twice with formula at home - some out of frustration because I couldn’t get her to nurse.

On day 3, my milk came in…dripping like water through a sieve! I was SOO ENGORGED! I felt like someone beat my bre@sts with a baseball bat! I used cabbage leaves, soaked my breasts in hot water, took warm baths and showers, took ibuprofin, etc. etc. OOOWWW!

The day after returning home from the hospital, I made my first call to a local breastfeeding counseling group. Mary was AWESOME and recommended that I rent a pump, so at 9 p.m. the day after getting home from the hospital, Chris rented me a pump. The relief! I pumped and pumped and pumped. We supplemented Delaney with pumped milk as she still wasn’t nursing well.

Finally, by the end of the first week, we were successfully nursing and no longer supplementing with the SNS. And by the end of the second week, she began to wake up and announce her presence to the world! This is when the screaming began. Delaney would just cry and cry and cry and cry. Needless to say, she spent about the first 2 and a half months of her life attached the bre@st, morning, noon and night. She nursed about every 2 hours, and from about 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. straight. We watched a lot of prime time television during that period. I nursed this child EVERYWHERE! I remember sitting down in a lawn chair in the garden center to nurse her when she was about a month old. She just needed to nurse all the time!

I struggled with major oversupply with Delaney. She had all the quintessential signs of a baby with too much foremilk - gassy, uncomfortable, green, bloody stools, constant nursing. It took several weeks of pumping before several feedings per day to regulate my supply, but it was so vulnerable! It would take weeks after a growth spurt to re-regulate my supply to a manageable flow.

Around two months, we discovered through trial and error that Delaney had an intolerance to cow’s milk proteins. I cut all dairy out of my diet and her personality changed dramatically.

By the time she was 6 months old, she was still nursing about every 2-3 hours. I had no qualms about nursing her in public, so we nursed just about everywhere. We co-slept, so she nursed numerous times throughout the night. She was a chunker, too! She gained weight very very well.

She finally decided that eating food other than breastmilk was OK around 8 or 9 months. She’d eat a bit here and there, mostly fruits and veggies. She ate her first meat at Thanksgiving just before turning one. She started picking up her food intake around 10 or 11 months old, eating three small meals per day. She was still an avid nurser, never allowing 3 hours to lapse without nursing.

The day before her first birthday party we discovered that we were pregnant again. SHOCK! We were certainly surprised, but it did explain quite a bit about her actions over the prior month. She was dissatisfied at the breast, and I had actually given her rice milk to supplement at this point. She had bitten me three separate times to bleeding (my bre@sts will never be the same - they are scarred!). She seemed hungry often, even just after nursing. My milk supply was decreasing rapidly, and the quality of the milk was falling, as well.

I feared that this would be the end of our nursing relationship, but alas, she did not give it up! She continued nursing - mostly comfort nursing - every 3 to 4 hours day and night. At 13 months, we decided to nightwean her, which was somewhat of a struggle. At 15 months, she moved to her own bed in our room. By the time she was 16 or 17 months old, she was nursing in the mornings, at naptime, in the late afternoon, at bedtime, and twice after going to bed (around 10 p.m., then at 4 a.m.).

When Delaney was 18 months, 5 days old, Colin was born. My milk changed to colostrum and she was always second in line to nurse. When Colin was 5 days old, my milk came in. The first time I nursed Delaney to sleep after my milk came in, she was surprised! She could barely handle the flow - she had forgotten how to nurse properly! I can still picture her little head popping up and a trickle of milk running down her cheek. I think this just renewed her interest in nursing.

Around 20 or 21 months, I stopped nursing her at nap time, and around this same time, we stopped nursing in the evenings before dinner, as well. I was overloaded with nursing a newborn and a needy toddler! She did finally start gaining some weight, though - she has always been quite petite after chunking up between 3-9 months old.

Around her second birthday, we also started giving her cow’s milk. She is still slightly intolerant - it gives her a yucky nose - but if we limit her cow’s milk intake, she does OK. She also went through a phase in which she boycotted any milk except mama’s milk. I was pumping every evening after the children went to bed and offered her a cup of breastmilk in the late afternoon. She thought it was grand!

At age two, Delaney was nursing at bedtime, at 10 p.m., and at 4 a.m.; she would also occasionally nurse during the day, depending on her mood. By the time she was 2.5, she started sleeping through the 10 p.m. nursing, but was still nursing at 4 a.m. Shortly after, she started sleeping all night, and was only nursing at bed time.

Delaney last nursed on September 26, 2007. She was 2 years, 10 months old. We helped her wean from that last bedtime nursing by offering her a cup of milk at bed time and snuggles with daddy. We experimented over that last month, but she wasn’t ready to let go. Weaning was bittersweet. I was ready to only nurse one child and to let go of that relationship, but it was certainly hard to do!

I’m proud of nursing Delaney so successfully. It would have been very easy to stop during that first two weeks when life was rough. But I knew I wanted to do it, so I made it a priority. I never regretted giving up dairy for her, either - and it helped me lose a TON of weight (well, 20 lbs, not really a TON). I’m proud of myself for donating milk to the Human Milk Bank while Delaney was under a year old, as well. In total, I donated over 200 ounces before getting pregnant again.