My BFing Journey-- Part 1

First and foremost, I would like to address any men that might be reading this post. This is one that you might want to skip. I'm going to talk about breastfeeding and I'm going to be pretty honest. Reason being that I want to remember this, but also, if someone ever goes through what I went through, I hope they would somehow find this entry and know that they aren't alone. So gentlemen? Adios.

Breastfeeding. It sounds easy enough. I certainly was under the extreme misconception that it was easy for everyone. All I was told about the potential hardship of breastfeeding was that it usually hurts for the first two weeks, but by the end of that two weeks, the pain is gone and it's smooth sailing.

To that I say-- HA. Ha, ha, HA HA HA.

Now if you're pregnant and planning on breastfeeding, I don't want to scare you. It's easy for a lot of people, but what I have found since having Griffin is that it's also hard for a lot of people. I was one of those people.

When Griffin was born, it was my desire and expectation that he would nurse almost immediately. When he wouldn't latch, I wasn't worried at all. I was told that there are many babies who don't latch after birth, that many babies take a few hours and then "get it". We had 24 hours for him to latch and nurse before supplementing would be suggested and I was on cloud 9 with my new baby, so I honestly didn't even worry about it.

Those first 24 hours, we tried often and we tried hard. The nurse helped me and they sent in a lactation consultant, but he just would not latch and eat. When Griffin was 24 hours old, he still had not latched and sucked long enough for them to count it as a full feeding. They brought in formula and instructed me to spend 10 minutes attempting to nurse, then feed him formula, then pump. We did this every 2 hours. I remember feeling very disappointed that we had to do this, but I was still so elated with everything that I didn't dwell on it too long. I figured that Griffin would pick it up in a day or two and we'd be on our way.

When we got home from the hospital, I continued with the pattern of attempted feeding, bottle feeding, and pumping. It was exhausting, plus I developed a fever that hung on for the better part of three days. A day or two later, my milk came in. Shortly after that, Griffin finally latched and started nursing! Hooray! I thought we were golden. Within a day of nursing, I started to feel pain. I remember thinking, "Oh, this is what they were talking about." The only problem was that the pain got so bad that I began to dread every nursing session. I would tense up and in turn, Griffin would get tense. After nursing for a few days, I was sobbing through every feeding. Now, I went through 21 hours of natural labor and never cried once. This? It was awful. Every time he ate, I felt like someone was stabbing me with knives and that is the very best way I can think to describe it. I was in awful pain and I was bleeding badly. I ended up calling a lactation consultant at the hospital and she was not very helpful. She actually asked me where I picked up my fever. Um, I don't know? Maybe the hospital that I just lived in for 48 hours!? I kept thinking, "I can do this. It will get better. I can do this." It didn't get better, though. It just got worse and worse.

Ten days after Griffin was born, things took an extremely scary turn. I won't ever write about that time in detail on this blog, but if you need more information, feel free to contact me privately. In short, he had some weight gain issues and they put him on formula exclusively for three days until our follow up appointment. When they told me that, I fell apart. I don't know if I've ever cried so hard in my entire life. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.

They wanted him exclusively to have formula for those three days to ensure that he could gain weight. Praise God, when we returned three days later, he had gained almost a full pound. It was at that point that they told me I could start feeding him breast milk again, but that it needed to be in a bottle so that we could see how much he was eating. If he continued to gain weight on breast milk after a few days, I could go back to nursing.  I pumped and fed him that way exclusively and he continued to gain weight. It was SUCH a relief. However, it was still the desire of my heart to be able to nurse him.

For the next three weeks, I fed him every 2-3 hours on the dot. I started with pumping exclusively, but within a week, I returned to the routine of attempting to nurse (with our pediatricians blessing), feeding him a bottle, and then pumping for 20 minutes. It was extremely tiresome and very tedious, especially since he just wasn't picking up on the latching and feeding part. I'm so thankful my mom stayed with us for 2 weeks. She was a saint and helped so much with washing pump parts, bottles, helping to feed Griffin and giving me moral support. Tyler also was indispensable. I absolutely would have given up without their help.

My mom went home when Griffin was 2 weeks old. Shortly thereafter, I contracted a mean case of mastitis, complete with nausea, a high fever, and some near fainting spells. I don't recommend getting that sick when you have a two week old baby. Thankfully, Tyler was able to take over that day and did everything. It was not fun.

When Griffin was almost 4 weeks old, he started latching and eating again! I was elated and again, thought we were turning a corner. Little did I know, it was just the start of more issues.

In writing this post, I realized that this is a really, really long story. I'm going to post it in at least two parts, maybe even three. If you're still reading this, God bless you! I'll be back with part two in a day or so.

You can read part two of this story here.