A Journey of Patience, Love and a Bunch of Hard Work

Now that it's over and things are FINALLY good, I can sit down and blog about the journey that Knox and I went through to get to where we are today with breastfeeding hopefully without falling apart as I relive the last 11 weeks. Knox will be 12 weeks this Tuesday and as of him turning 11 weeks we were finally to a comfortable and normal nursing pair! It took a lot to get us here. If you are interested in our journey... read on.

He was born and we immediately had skin to skin time for a while and after they cleaned him a little I tried to nurse. I thought since he was "overdue" by 3 days he would be ready and willing to be a champion nurser... Nope, I was very wrong. He seemed to want to but just couldn't figure out how to open his mouth to do so. I pretty much had to force him on the first time. If you read my blog when I had Aubree, we had our share of issues for 2 1/2 weeks until she finally woke up to eat and at 2 1/2 weeks that was that.. she just nursed! Well, Knox was awake, but just couldn't do it. The nursed just threw a nipple shield at me and I really didn't want to go that route, so I tried again. He couldn't do it. The nurses tried to look at his tongue to check for tongue tie and they didn't think that was the issue. I begged for lactation services and they are in so high demand that it was an act of God to get them in there and I was already tensing up and stressing out that it wouldn't work. My glass was half empty about the whole situation. When lactation got there they wanted me to pump to encourage my milk to come in and dropper feed him the "good stuff." I did that and still tried to get him to latch. He did latch well before I left the hopstial, but looking back he was wasn't turly latched. I left the hospital very sore, but still hopeful since he did somewhat latch before we left.

We got home and life hit me head on! I have three other kids at home, a 7 yr old that was immersed in football practices 5 nights a week, school orientations, meet the teachers, gymnastics ,Aubree's bday party etc. I just couldn't sit around and "try" to nurse my baby all day. Thank goodness my saint of a mother was here for as long as I needed her to be. She was my rock those first few days as I fell apart amost hourly on the hour.

The first day or two home, my milk was in and he would latch after some work on my part, but he just didn't seem satisfied and it hurt really bad. He wouldn't latch at night so I just pumped and bottle fed. He slept great (which helped out a lot). I remember in my bfing class 8 years ago that it shouldn't hurt if the latch is correct. By day three at home, he just wouldn't settle down after a feeding and I figured he just wasn't getting anything while actually nursing. I called the LC on Sunday, left a message amid the tears and they called me back pretty quick. The only thing they could offer me on a Sunday was to rent a scale to see what he was actually getting. We ran over, got a scale, I fell apart in the maternity center to the LC, came home tried it out and realized, nope he wasn't getting enough. I called back on Monday and she encouraged me to just pump and bottle feed to get him back to birth weight! I was a mess! I did it b/c that was what was best for Knox, but it was very hard. I was deterimed to make it work and I'm a stubborn chick! So for the next week and a half I tired to latch him, finally gave up, pumped, bottle fed and started all over again. That is all I did everyday. All I thought about was trying to feed him. There were a lot of tears shed by me and him and now I feel so darn guilty about upsetting him so much. He just couldn't figure it out plain and simple and the more I tried to get him to do it the more he didn't want to. It was torture for both of us.

I would fall apart to anyone that I saw whether I knew them or not. I couldn't talk to anyone without crying. I pretty much went through the first two weeks not knowing what day or time it was and not knowing whether my kids had eaten, brushed thier teeth or been bathed. This is where how awsome my mom is comes in to play. She stepped in and took over when I just couldn't bring myself to be me. She also had to put up with me. She was so patient and wanted to understand my desire to nurse my baby but no one could understand the hurt and pain that I was feeling. I just felt rejected by him, but I know that it wasn't his fault and that he did love me, he just couldn't figure it out. By this time he was loving the bottle and how it just poured into his mouth. He didn't have to work too much at all for it, so why would he want to work harder to get it from me???

I kept on trucking though. LC finally saw me for an appt and pretty much threw her hands into the air. She gave me a few suggestions but none of them really work. They just made my pain worse. The pain in the shower was the worst!

Finally on Aubree's bday (Aug. 20th) one day shy of him turning 2 weeks he latched. I had to pump to get "it" ready and then he got on and ate. Oh boy did it hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't care though. He was on!!!! Hooray, he was latched. After nursing for about 20 mins he seemed happy and full, but oh the pain. It would shoot up and down my arm and into my back. The next feeding, we did the same thing with the pump and he latched again... maybe we were making some progress, but oh the pain was so bad! About 3 days later I was no longer pumping and only nursing. I wanted to be happy, but was in so much pain that it was hard to function. "They" were beginning to crack, and bleed. Raw is pretty much the best way to describe them. I was googling everything I could on how to heal them. I tried lots of things... some crazy things and nothing worked. I nursed through the pain. I called the LC back and this lady just didn't have any way to help me.... It irritates me now b/c I think she just didn't want to deal with me anymore. After googling some more, I thought maybe we had thrush. I called my dr and his and they took my word for it and called us in some meds. That didn't work, so I went into the midwife and they took some samples to look for yeast (thrush) or a bacterial infection that would prevent me from healing. Both were negative. They prescribed me some "miracle nipple ointment" that was far short of a miracle at this point. He was 5 weeks at the time and growing well to my expense of pain.

At my 6 week visit, I got to see my WONDERFUL dr. I had to take Knox with me and of course he was hungry. I was nursing him when the dr came in and he looked on my chart and saw all of the issues we were having. He wanted to know how that was going and so Knox got done eating and I just showed him how mangled I was. He was in shock that I could even nurse. I think I was numb to the pain at that point. He was upset the the other LC couldn't help me. He prescribed me an antibiotic to try to help with the healing and took it upon himself to call the head of lactation and demand I be seen by someone else. Love him!

The head of lactation called me the next day and set me up with another LC. She became my saving grace! Bless her! She spent close to three hours with me on a Sunday afternoon (when they don't normally see patients) and was so patient and understanding and truly wanted to help me heal. He was 7 weeks by this point and his latch was getting there. It was almost perfect at this point, we just had to figure out how to make me heal. Well, she recommended this product that was a life saver. They are called soft shells by medela and were a Godsend! They allowed air to get to "them" and let the oinment do it's job. It took another 4 weeks of this for them to fully heal. I still had to nurse through the pain, but it was getting better. It was slow, but I knew we were on the right track. So at 11 weeks there were no more open wounds and everything was "normal." We had gone through all of this and at 11 weeks he was close to 14 pounds. Those 6 lbs. were very much earned and were gained with a lot of love, patience and hard work.

Breastfeeding is so challenging. It's one of the hardest things I will have ever done, but it's so rewarding and I would work that hard again in a heartbeat to have this bond with my baby that no one else will ever have with him. Call me selfish... that's ok! I am ;)

It melts my heart now when he looks up at me while nursing, gives me a half smile and I know he knows how hard we have worked to get to our "happy place."

Two Months Old - Already!

Sweet little Knoxton is 2 months old! He is such a joy and we can't even imagine what life would be without him here! I think my favorite thing right now is how he smiles with those sweet checks and his face just lights up. He is gaining weight great and at his appt was 13 lbs. 5 oz. (90%) and 24 3/4 inches long (97%). He is going to be so tall! He got his shots and did way better than I thought he would do. He only cried for a minute. He is starting to put his fingers in his mouth and we are hoping one day soon he will find his thumb. He is sleeping good at night, but not doing too great with naps. He will mostly only nap when he is in the moby or ergo. He isn't a good car rider either, but hopefully he will get better. I think it's b/c he can't see me! :) Although there are some challenges, it's all worth it! He moved into size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes close to his 2nd month bday. We are just in love with this little guy!