Nursing

This post is all about breastfeeding - so if that bores you, weirds you out, or offends you on any level feel free to stop reading now.  I never talked too much about my struggles, so this is more for me to write out and remember.  No cute baby pics this time :)

I always thought that I wanted to nurse my kids, ideally until one year.  That is a lofty goal!  Exclusive breastfeeding is a 24/7 lifestyle and quite the commitment. 

With Gabrielle everything was going pretty well with feeding.  It was hard and very time consuming, but going well.  I think I was meant to have triplets because I make an insane amount of milk.  It sounds like such a blessing but it comes with many problems and ultimately lead  me to having to stop feeding Gabs and most normal people would have stopped with Oliver too but I was stubborn :)

When Gabrielle was four days old I was walking down the hallway and a fever came over me out of the blue.  It hit hard and fast - 104.  I knew spiking a fever four days after giving birth was not good at all.  I was shaking uncontrollably with chills and Nick took me to Urgent Care in town.  They did a few tests and an EKG.  It was kind of a whirlwind but they decided to ambulance me to the ER in Lansing.  We stayed at the ER until the wee morning hours and after blood tests, a chest xray, and lots of other stuff the lovely doctor thought that I had the flu, that my milk was "bad", and to go home and quarantine myself from my baby and pump and dump my milk.  Yes, that whole experience and "diagnosis" is totally absurd, but hindsight is always 20/20.  Of course, I didn't have the flu, it was mastitis.  But we were brand new parents and had no idea what was going on so we did what we were told.

I stayed locked in my room away from my new baby for about 1.5 days and dumped my milk.  That was the beginning of the end.  I ended up nursing with supplementing for about 5 weeks before having to go to all formula.  Gabrielle is healthy, smart, and happy so even though feeding her did not go how I had hoped, she still thrived :)

When I was pregnant with Oliver, I knew I wanted to try to successfully nurse again.  I was more educated on what could [and probably would] happen again and was going to give it my all.  And it took my ALL.  Feeding Oliver was going wonderfully.  From the moment he was born he was a natural and he was gaining weight like a champ.  When he was 5 days old the fever started in the night and Nick woke up to the bed shaking with my chills.  800mg of ibuprofen and the fever would be back 3 hours later.  I went to the doctor and started my first of four rounds of antibiotics I would take throughout the year.  From the infection, my supply went way down and Oliver was struggling.  I supplemented with just a few ounces of formula, and though lots of feeding/pumping, fenugreek, and a medication I was able to get my supply back to normal. 

Another infection came a few days after finishing my antibiotics and I started another round.  During that round of medicine I developed fevers and infection again.  Doctors did a milk culture and breast ultrasound which both came back fine, so I was prescribed a antibiotic cream and all was well for a few months.  About 5 or 6 months in, another infection came after I was away (and pumping) for a weekend.  About 10 months in, another infection came.  Who knows why.  And of course the infections would only come at night or a weekend so I would end up in Urgent Care. 

Even through all of this, Oliver thrived and loved it!  He was always a hearty boy - bigger than average and it was all due to me (surprisingly!).  Of course, he never really took a bottle.  He didn't eat baby food, and I got reprimanded at his 9 month check up because wasn't eating and still only on milk.  He didn't sleep through the night for 13 months.  He has food allergies so I didn't eat a morsel of chocolate, milk, peanut butter, cheese, shrimp, or a million other things for months because it would hurt him.  But he was happy and he got what he wanted.  And I achieved my goal.  He never had formula (other than the few ounces at a couple of weeks old) and I nursed him for 13.5 months until I decided to wean him.  And it went very well for both of us - the last time was Christmas morning.  He now has a great appetite (he loves meat!) and drinks water out of straw cups like crazy.  And he now sleeps through the night.

It was something I wanted to do in my life and I'm so happy I achieved it!