From the first few weeks of my pregnancy, I knew I would deliver early. It wasn't something a doctor told me, just a feeling that she would come before it was time. I guess you could call it my first experience of mother's intuition.
Strangely enough, I was obsessed with breastfeeding. The whole concept is completely amazing to me. I read every single post on message boards about breastfeeding and bought countless books about the subject on Amazon. Anything I could get my hands on about the subject was something I wanted to add to my library. I was so excited about the topic, I even considered going back to school to become a lactation consultant after we got out of the baby stage. Although we have all heard that breastfeeding is hard, I was sure I would be able to make it work, I would make sure that nothing would stop me from breastfeeding.
Although I had a relatively easy pregnancy, although it was spotted with one trip to urgent care and two trips to labor and delivery for urinary tract infections. By the time the second L&D visit came around, I was pretty sure I was also leaking amniotic fluid. The nurse convinced me I was leaking urine instead, a common occurrence in late pregnancy. It didn't smell like urine, but she was far more experienced in this than I, so I let it go. I gave birth one week after my night in labor and delivery. I'll never know if it really was fluid or if it was urine but that is quite a coincidence.
Avery was born on July 11, 2011 at 5:08 in the morning weighing 6 pounds 8 ounces. I was 36 weeks when I gave birth. Luckily, Avery didn't need any extra medical care and she was perfectly healthy, just on the small side. Although I tried over and over, she just refused to latch. I was visited daily by the lactation consultants who were also unsuccessful with getting her to stay hooked on for more than a few seconds. The eventually taught me how to feed her using a gloved finger and a syringe filled with formula.
Towards the end of my hospital stay, they encouraged me pump in order to give her every last drop of colostrum and hopefully bring my milk in. For some reason, I was only given the setup to pump one breast at a time. For baby #2, I'll definitely remember to ask for a second one. Trying to pump colostrum on only one side while trying to care for a baby as well as recover from a vaginal delivery was absolutely grueling. My husband had to return to work right away, since with me in the hospital 2/3 of our company workforce was gone. It probably sounds like no big deal to some but the only thing that kept me from being all alone at the hospital was the constant interruption by the nurses. My husband and I considered ourselves lucky - our child who was born one whole month early was as healthy as a horse.
About a week after giving birth, my milk finally came in. By that time, I was relatively sure it wasn't ever going to happen. Again we tried latching without any success. That was fine, I had already decided that she would eat formula instead, but it was like we were given a new albeit more difficult chance at breastfeeding. Exclusively pumping was in the cards for us and I had to make it work. I knew of many moms who did it, I knew it would be hard but I was willing to make anything work at this point.
Every single day became more of a struggle to pump my milk. Exclusively pumping became several extra steps required for each feeding which required time and energy I just didn't have. As the days moved on, I became even more depressed about our situation. Instead of spending time with my beautiful little girl, I was hooked to that machine. I exclusively pumped for one whole month before I decided that she would benefit more by having a happy and sane mother along with formula rather than a depressed mother with breast milk, so I made the switch.
Unfortunately, switching to formula didn't solve the depression issue like I had hoped. As I arrived at my six week postpartum check-up, I knew I had to share this with someone. I cried through my entire appointment, where I was told to begin taking antidepressants and get some counseling.
With help, I am getting better. Over and over again, I kept thinking about how I was supposed to make this work. This was something I wanted so bad for my family and yet we just couldn't get the mechanics right. After deciding that I wasn't going to let this get me down anymore, I tried one more time. It was probably the worst good idea ever, why bother trying now when she seemed to be content with formula. Strangely enough, she latched like she had been doing this since day one.
So, I am now an officially breastfeeding mother.
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