Hi, my name is Kristen. I am mom to Ethan (3yrs) & Lilly (6 months). I am 33 yrs old and my one and only dream in life was to be a mom. At 20 I was diagnosed with Poly Cycstic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Basically my body does not always produce enough of the hormone to tell my body to release my eggs, so the eggs start to mature but don't get released; they stay in the ovaries and form cysts. For many reasons this makes it difficult to get pregnant.
When I got married we tried for 2.5 yrs to get pregnant and even went to a fertility specialist. The specialist immediately wanted to try intrauterine insemination. The success rate was not extremely high & it was going to cost a lot, so we decided to get a second opinion. My OB at the time would not refer us to any one else, so I got a new OB. I lucked out that the new OB was a fertility specialist (I didn't know that when I picked him, I had just heard wonderful things about his practice). He did not agree with the other specialist because he felt the doctor hadn't done his due diligence and performed certain tests to rule out other issues. So he did a gamut of tests, the last one being an HCG test, which is VERY painful. They shoot dye into your uterine cavity and watch it on a screen to see where it goes. Mine showed that my tubes were 98% and 99% blocked. This meant that the very expensive procedure the first doctor had wanted to do had no chance of ever working. I was told that if we wanted to get pregnant we would need IVF. So we went back to everyday life and started saving up money. One year later I wasn't feeling well, went to doctor, and found out I was 17 weeks pregnant with my son! Completely natural conception.
When he was born he was EXTREMELY jaundiced (almost life threatening) so we had to supplement early on. We did not get good advice or support from the hospital and ended up not being able to BF at all (at the time I did not know I could just pump and serve).
When I got pregnant with my daughter (again naturally) I was hellbent on nursing. Well, the doctor messed up my due date and she was born almost 5 weeks early (planned c-section due to emergency c-section with my son). No real complications but she was tiny and I have large nipples so there was a fitting issue, plus due to my PCOS my milk WAS VERY SLOW to come in. She was also jaundice, so we supplemented but had great advice this time and finger/syringe fed her. We tried for 3 1/2 months to BF but we couldn't get it to work. She was a lazy nurser. I had a terribly slow let down. At first it took over an hour to let down and get to the hind milk. My milk came in day 10 -14, by 3 weeks old we had stopped supplementing and everything was BM. I syringe fed her for 7 weeks.
Here is what a feeding consisted of:
Nurse 20 - 25 minutes, while pumping the other side. Then switch for another 20 minutes.
Finish pumping both side (double pumping). She had gotten enough milk to keep her happy while I finished, then syringe feed her. This took about 30 minutes or so.
Do it all over 2 hrs later.
This took a toll on my 3 yr old and me. I felt like I was constantly feeding/pumping, it consumed almost my whole day. I felt my relationship with my son was suffering.
I saw a lactation consultant once a week for 3 months and did before/after weights. We found that Lilly was only getting .5 to 1 oz per feeding. Finally I resigned myself to the fact that physical breast feeding was not in the cards for us. But that didn't mean she couldn't get breast milk. The way I look at it is, I'm still breast feeding just the delivery method is unconventional.
So now I eat oatmeal with flax seed mixed in (helps with letdown)everyday, drink tons of water, drink the nursing tea, and take More Milk Special Blend supplements. When I pump I rest a heating pad on my chest. I now get letdown in about 35 minutes and it only take about 45 minutes to pump. I get 6-8oz every time and have about 100 oz stashed. (I had almost 200 but had to break into it when my supply dropped when I switched from More Milk to fenugreek). I pump 5 -6 times a day (the 6th is hard to get in but I manage maybe 3 times a week, if lucky). Lilly is thriving. She started out off the charts (less than 1%) and is now up to 25 -50% for height and 10-20% for weight.
My original goal was a year but I would like to go 14 -16 months and then be able to have a stash for another couple months.
Lilly does nurse before bed or when she isn't feeling well but this is almost totally for comfort. But it is proven that your body can get biophysical readings from the saliva in her mouth when she latches, it adjust the milk, so I try to nurse her at least once a week or so to try to get her the best nutrition possible
Although this has been very hard and not exactly how I envisioned it, I couldn't imagine NOT doing this for her. I only wish I could have done this for my son. Exclusively Pumping is most definitely a labor of love and I greatly admire all moms who take this on. Thanks for letting me share my story!
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