Breastfeeding Challenges
Thankfully since we have been supplementing Cecilia, she has been gaining weight at about an ounce a day. But these last few days have been really hard.
Sunday came with a lot of challenges. That afternoon Cecilia didn’t want to nurse. It was devastating for me and left me just crushed. Thankfully the midwives gave me the name of a lactation consultant, Cheryl Haymans, who works for Special Addition Maternity Boutique. I called her several times during the weekend. While I was in tears on Sunday, she finally told me to just pump and give Cecilia a bottle and we set up a consultation with her for Monday afternoon. That night went well. The feedings didn’t last an hour and she got what she needed and I got a little more rest. However, when I started pumping I realized that my right breast is not producing enough milk. Cecilia needs about 2 oz of milk per feeding and my left breast produces 1 oz. but the right only produces a scant amount of milk. This is what we saw when we had the weight gain issues with Gianna when she was 6 months old.
Adam and I realize that life cannot go on this way–with 1 hour feedings. It’s simply too much for our family. And if I can’ t produce enough milk because of a faulty breast then where does this leave us? Yesterday Adam, Cecilia and I met with Cheryl to see how she could help our situation if at all. She was so very encouraging. She actually said that one breast producing less is pretty common. And she said that we need to work up to the sum total of my milk production being sufficient for Cecilia without supplementing. She assessed Cecilia’s tongue and actually found that she has a little tongue tie–that is the membrane below the tongue is too far up causing the tongue not to be able to go out all the way. One of the consequences of this is poor milk supply of the mom and poor weight gain–also poor latch and nipple damage (which we don’t have). Cecilia’s latches were pretty good–but she was also wide awake which is not often the case. And we found that she’s probably getting around 1.25 – 1.4 oz per feeding when she’s fully alert and nursing properly. So we’re hopeful we can get over this hump. And Cheryl was hopeful too since we’re not 6 months down the road like we were with Gianna.
Cheryl wrote us a very detailed plan to get the milk supply up. It means nursing every 3 hours start to start, then supplementing, and pumping for an additional 10-15 minutes. This still makes for an hour feeding. Cheryl is hopeful that if we do this diligently during this week, we can be 100% breastfeeding–no bottles or supplementing– by Monday. Also, today, Cecilia and I made a trip to the ENT and in a couple of short minutes, snip, her tied tongue was fixed.
I will admit this is hard. At best I get 2 hours of sleep at a time. And sometimes its’ so hard to wake Cecilia. Last night it was so hard to wake myself. I miss the other kids too because during the day this really takes 4-5 hours away from them to feed Cecilia. I’m so very thankful that Adam’s mom is here because we certainly could not do this without her being here watching the kids. And I’m so thankful that we have meals coming because that has been the very last thing on my mind these day. Hopefully this will work itself out by Monday. If not, I think there will be some serious choices to make for the sake of our family.
