Adventures in breastfeeding...

...or, My new life as a dairy cow.

I had no idea that something that female mammals have been doing since God created the world would be so frickin' difficult.

Nine days after my c section, my milk still has not "come in". I am a mixture of frustrated, annoyed, and emotionally drained by all this.

While I was still in the birth center, a lactation consultant came and talked to me about feeding. The nurses had given me a plastic breast shield to help draw out my nipples, but that first consultant recommended I not use it. She said it made for "lazy nursing" on the baby's part. She told me to use sugar water or drips of formula on my nipple to keep Brendan's attention during nursing, and gave me advice on helping him latch on. Later that same day, a second, different consultant came by to see how things were going. I told her Brendan was having difficulty latching on without the shield. She said she thought I should go ahead and use the shield if it helped. She told me that once Brendan got the hang of feeding I could start "weaning" him off the shield.

I had expressed to both consultants that I was concerned that I wasn't producing any milk. At no point during my pregnancy did I ever notice any colostrum or anything. My breasts did go through changes during the pregnancy: they got very sore and sensitive, and definitely increased in size (like I needed that). Both consultants assured me that, while I might not see anything, I surely was producing colostrum, and that newborns don't need much because they still are running off the nutrition they had gotten from momma prior to birth, and that my milk would "come in" soon. Since these were the knowledgeable professionals, I did what they told me to do.

After the first few feedings, we noticed (and the nurses concurred) that Brendan got positively frantic during feedings. One of the nurses compared his attempts to latch with a dog with a chew toy. He cried, he rooted, he flailed. Several of the nurses agreed with us that he still seemed hungry after our attempted feedings, and they suggested that I supplement with formula until my supply increased.

The first night home was a disaster. Of course we were all exhausted just trying to get into a routine, but Brendan couldn't seem to breastfeed at all, and we resorted to full bottles of formula out of desperation. We went back in that next day to talk to the lactation consultant again. She spent a whole hour working with us on all the technicalities of feeding (how to hold the baby, helping him latch, etc.). She told us again to use drips of formula on my nipples to "prime the pump" and encourage him to keep feeding. She gave us a little eye dropper to use and sent us on our way. She again sort of "pooh-poohed" my concerns about my supply, and told us not to supplement with formula.

We went home and tried to stick with the plan the lactation consultant had laid out for us. But after much screaming, flailing, rooting, hand-chewing, and a great deal of crying on both our parts, I broke down and gave Brendan a bottle of formula in the middle of the night. He just seemed so HUNGRY.

The next day we had our first checkup with the pediatrician (Brendan was now four days old). To our horror, Brendan had lost almost a full pound from his birth weight (born at 8 lbs, now down to 7 lbs 1 oz). The pediatrician was extremely concerned; she said that weight loss of more than 10% could be cause to admit him to the hospital. They did a heel stick to check his bilirubin, which thankfully was in the normal limits so they didn't admit him to the hospital. But the pediatrician finally listened to my concerns about my supply. She sent us home with instructions to try to breastfeed him for as long as he'd tolerate on each side, then get on my breastpump and see what I could pump while my husband gave Brendan a couple ounces of formula. Anything I could pump would then be given in a bottle during the next feeding (after the breastfeeding and before the formula). She told us to come back the next day.

Definitely a complicated feeding plan. But I was incredibly relieved, when I got on the pump for the first time, to see that I indeed was producing something. I managed to pump a tiny bit of colostrum, only about half an ounce, but it really was there. I was so relieved, in fact, that I burst into tears. I had just been devastated by the idea that I was not able to take care of my baby's needs. So we went back to the pediatrician the next day and reported what had happened. Just with our formula supplementation, Brendan's weight was back up to 7 lbs 9 oz, after only one day. Poor baby had obviously been super dehydrated. Just in those 24 hours he produced more wet diapers than he had the entire rest of his life. How sad is that?

The pediatrician had been doing a little research. She said that hypertensive mothers (I've been treated for high blood pressure for probably seven or eight years now) often have a delay in their milk coming in. Also, women who had a c section tend to be delayed. And since I had so many anti-diuretic meds during the course of my labor and c-section, I am having major fluid retention issues (my legs, ankles, and feet are horrifically swollen), which probably is also affecting my milk production. She told us to continue our feeding routine--the pump would help Brendan access my milk regardless of how well he was latching, and it would help stimulate my milk production. She said she felt confident that we were still within the window of opportunity for me to be able to breastfeed.

So feeding has been a two-person job. While I start Brendan out on breast, my husband warms up the previous pump-job's bottle of breast milk and then mixes up the bottle of formula. When I'm done, I hand Brendan over to him and get on the pump. I still have not pumped more than an ounce total at one time, but the quality of the milk has changed (not colostrum any more; thinner and whiter), and Brendan is spending more time on each breast which means he's probably getting more from me than he was.

But everyone keeps talking about milk "coming in", and breasts getting engorged, and "letting down" and all that, and it just isn't happening for me. I would really like to be able to stop worrying about the formula (and the pumping--holy crap that thing hurts!) and just breastfeed. I'll be happy to pump enough for my husband to do some feedings himself, but this whole "pump every two hours" thing is exhausting and painful. It takes over an hour to complete the feeding process, and when we're feeding every two hours, it seems like my entire life is spent either breastfeeding or pumping. I'm tired.

Did anyone else have any problems similar to this? Do you think my milk will ever show up, or am I going to be doomed to keep up this stupid feeding schedule forever? I'm just super discouraged.