Adventures in Breastfeeding

When I write posts like this I'm under the assumption that anyone who reads my blog is 1) Female 2) A family member or a close friend. If that is incorrect and you have no desire to read this {almost} TMI post, you can scroll to the end where there are pictures and videos of the babe for general viewing pleasure.

Mostly I wanted to write about everything we've been going through with breastfeeding because I wish someone had shared with me just how hard it can be. It's not hard for everyone, or with every child. And it really is natural and wonderful and perfect. But there are a lot of challenges and discomforts that come with it. And over the past 8 weeks we seem to have been blessed with a taste of just about every single one of them. In spite of this, I have still loved nursing. I wouldn't do it differently even for a day. It has helped me so much every time someone says "just stick with it, it's so worth it!" So that's my little post today. It's not a big whine-fest. I just want to be up front about some of our struggles and hopefully encourage anyone who may have experienced, or be experiencing, or will experience the same things.

So here's our laundry list of little obstacles on our path to breastfeeding:

1) The sore nipples and learning to latch. Sore nipples for the first little bit seem to be the norm, and of course there's a learning curve for baby with the latching. But there were times that it would take 1-2 HOURS for him to get latched. Seriously. And at 3 am that's really frustrating. My poor mom suffered through this with us for the first couple of weeks, and I don't know how I would have gotten through it without her support and encouragement. There was a lot of crying and wailing. And not just from the baby. He eventually got to where he could latch no problem. But after several weeks, my sore nipples did not go away.

2) The cracked nipple. My continued soreness made me think maybe his latch was bad, but I couldn't see anything to correct. It looked exactly like every picture and video I could find of a good latch. But somehow my left side ended up with a crack after about four weeks. Mason spit up blood one day and I freaked out, until I realized it was my blood. Ouch. I called my midwife and got the recipe for Dr. Jack Newman's ointment and used it religiously, but there was only mild improvement. By this point I was just loading up on Ibuprofen pretty much around the clock to keep from crying every time he needed to eat on the cracked side.

3) The clogged duct. After the whole blood incident, Mason decided to refuse to eat on that side. I can't really blame him I guess, but any woman who has nursed knows what it's like if baby doesn't eat for several hours. And he refused to eat for almost 24 hours on that side. I had to pump, but it was still so painful, and caused a clogged duct. After many warm compresses and a lot of persuasion, he finally ate on that side and we were able to clear it up before it got worse or turned into mastitis.

4) The Thrush. Due to the cracked nipple, we were left open and susceptible to the infamous thrush. We realized this about a week ago when I had horrible shooting pains in my breast one morning after nursing. So bad that I laid in bed and cried for an hour before I quit being a stupid baby and got up and called my midwife AGAIN. So we painted his mouth with Gentian Violet and I got on Diflucan. I was feeling so positive, feeling like we had finally gotten to the root of all our problems.

5) The tongue-tie. After a couple days of treating the thrush I noticed a crack starting on my other side. Which obviously made no sense. I didn't expect to be healed in a day, but I really didn't think we should be getting worse. I was sure it had to be his latch. So yesterday I called my midwife. Yes, again. She had me come in right then and she inspected the 8 weeks of damage and watched him latch and eat--confirming that his latch was actually great. Then she noticed that he couldn't stick his tongue out past his lips-to his lips, but not past. So she looked and sure enough, he had a posterior tongue-tie. It wasn't a full tongue-tie, so he's been able to eat just fine (he is over 12 lbs), but my nipples have been the collateral damage.

6) The frenuloplasty. Thank heavens that I worked at an Ear, Nose, Throat office. I had seen this done at least a dozen times and knew what we had to do. I took him in that afternoon, and one of the wonderful doctors did it right then. They just clip that little piece of skin (frenulum) under the tongue. He's a little old to have it done in the office, but there was no way I was going to put this babe under anesthesia for something so small. So luckily I know the doctor well and he was fine doing it there. He bled a little and cried a little and then slept a lot. And it has been almost instant relief.

7) The milk blister or "bleb". (grossest word ever, right??) While seeing my midwife she informed me that this is what the horrible white spots are. So apparently this happens if the milk is too thick and it clogs the duct at the opening. I had to open up the blister with a needle, and now I have to take Lecithin supplements to thin the milk to prevent it from happening anymore. And Lecithin is absolutely the most wretched substance known to man. I tried to eat it in eggs as suggested online and almost puked. So I baked it into some oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies with about a pound of cinnamon and nutmeg to hide the taste. They're still gross, but I can choke down one of those a day to get my dose.

We're still healing and treating all the aftermath, but it's actually possible for us to make progress now. The huge blessing through all of this is that Mason hasn't suffered really at all (except the frenuloplasty) because he's been getting plenty to eat. And like my midwife said, she's glad when she has problems to work through because it helps her help other moms. So maybe that's why our nursing adventure has been fraught with hardships, to teach me some empathy. It's all been worth it though. It is such a beautiful privilege to be the source of this baby's nutrition, and I would go through it all again and again if I had to. But let's pray that I won't.

And now, the pictures and videos. The REAL reason you stopped by my blog. =)






































Sometimes we have nowhere to sit















Dad's idea of playing with the canning rings



















Chubby baby



















Some new jammies and post-bath crazy eyes



















He loves to eat his hands. Sometimes when he wakes up we don't even know until we hear the sucking noises coming from the room because he just soothes himself with it. We are trying really hard to keep the thumb out though. We don't want to break a thumb sucking habit!!


Sometimes Austin and I have fun at his expense =)