Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start! (Can you name that movie?) I have been really surprised at just how incredibly dynamic the whole process has been. Just a year ago, I was determined to be able to nurse you. True to form, I was afraid that any admission that that might not happen was opening the door to failure. I had been offended a little when the hospital lactation nurse suggested I wait to buy a pump "until [I] see how things go." I thought I had been honest enough to admit we might have trouble, but also thought I was determined enough to see through whatever challenges we might face. I say all of this to just illustrate that I was just as naive as any other new mom might have been. I really thought that the toughest part was getting started and after the first several weeks, we'd work together like pros. In retrospect that's almost laughable.
You began like a champ. Within an hour of being born you had latched on well and nursed. I was so pleased that I was willing to tolerate any latch as long as you had one. Early on, that often meant a shallow latch and one that made me sore and you inefficient. I wonder now if I should have encouraged you to latch a little differently. You were very consistent from the start, nursing five to fifteen minutes each side while we were still in the hospital. Unfortunately, you were also a spitter from the start. The nursery nurses joked that they knew it was time for you to eat at night when you spit up everything I had fed you three hours earlier. Yep, we worked hard to get that liquid gold colostrum in your belly, but you had trouble keeping it there. Before we left the hospital, I asked the lactation nurse to check your latch. You had thin little lips and it was tough to tell when you would roll the bottom one in rather than flange it out as it should have been. It made me feel better to get the official seal of approval before we headed home. I came home after 32 hours with a nursing baby. I was thrilled and living on adrenaline.
I set to feeding you on a schedule, every two to three hours during the day and up to four hours (when you would let me) at night. Just after 72 hours after you were born, I began to notice you swallowing when you nursed. My milk was in its way in! I had prepared myself for a four to five day wait, and cannot begin to say how relieved I was when it was less. Suddenly I knew you wouldn't be starving anymore. I could comfort and nourish you. We were going to make it. The next day was your first pediatric appointment. You had lost more weight since your discharge from the hospital. I believe you were down to 6 lbs 12 oz. While that was a little more weight loss than I liked, I had every reason to believe you were on the upswing. Our pediatrician gave you a free pass to return in six weeks.
With that we settled into what I tried to make our routine. (We all know you didn't really have a schedule for many, many months. In fact, I'm not quite sure when that finally happened, I just realized one day that we have one!) It would take nearly eight weeks of sleep deprivation and an ugly breakdown on my birthday before I would finally listen to your dad and let go of that. During that time you nursed forever never really breaking your latch on your own. You would nurse for 30 or more minutes on each side until I would finally take you off. Then, since you were still a champion spitter, we'd have to sit upright for another 20 minutes. We did this every two to three hours during the day and three to four hours at night. When I dared to do the math, I found that nursing was more than a full time job. It was so sweet though to have that closeness with you. While we never allowed you to sleep in our bed (I'd never sleep for fear of SIDs), we did often fall asleep together sitting up as I held you swaddled against my chest for your 20 min reflux break in the night. When I realized we had fallen asleep and your upright time was up, I'd lean carefully over to lay you in your car seat, then slide silently under the covers to try to get an hour or two of sleep before we started all over again. Days and nights became a blur, our time was measured in minutes of nursing and minutes until time to nurse again. I'm not eager to go back to those days, but I would not have traded them for anything. I smile now, just thinking of that time. It was so intensely sweet and intensely emotional. I don't think we'll ever have anything like it again.
The tough times, though, came about once a week when you just didn't settle down to sleep after your 10 pm feeding. Instead, you'd cry and be restless for hours until it was time for you to eat again. Your dad and I tag teamed these. We were so exhausted and so frustrated. We felt we had to be missing something, you had, after all, settled down just fine for the previous five or six nights, why not that night? Was it something I ate? Was it gas? reflux? colic? In the end it was normal, and we should have been grateful it was only about once a week! Still, just as there was nothing like the satisfaction of knowing I had everything you needed for comfort and growth, there was nothing like the panic I felt when you cried and rooted frantically, but would not latch. Those were the times when we cried together. Fortunately a neighbor and fellow mom had told me that things would start to get better at six weeks, then that eight weeks was better than six, and ten better than eight. She was right. By eight weeks you were sleeping through the night most nights and that made all the difference. Suddenly nursing frustrations were not as frustrating.
During those first eight weeks we experience and unexpected show of love and support from our local friends. We had weeks and weeks of meals provided, and many of them were brought by well-meaning friends eager to meet you. Most of the time, they were very accommodating and came on little notice at the exact time that I thought would fit our schedule. Sometimes, though, we needed to nurse and visit with others. That added a whole new challenge. I thought that after those first few weeks nursing would be second nature to both of us...not so. Instead, I found that I could not know how you had fed if I was also talking to a visitor. Had you really nursed the last 20 minutes, or had you fallen asleep? That's not to mention the task of trying to get you latched on discretely under a cover...I never have gotten good at that. As I realized that we still needed to give each other our undivided attention, I excused myself from visitors. After about eight weeks, we also moved your nursing chair out of the living room and into your room. This move isolated me more during our nursing hours, but also allowed us to focus better on each other.
The other major adjustment in our first two months was pumping. That is another story for another post. I'll start there in part two.
I commend you Mom Nages for your undivided attention and patience in nursing LO!
ReplyDeleteMany of us mothers did not have the perseverence to tackle the nursing issue.
We must all raise our glasses to you for a
job well done and please keep writing the blogs at your own pace. toona