|
 |
|
When Cole Michael was born, he was happy, healthy, and ready to eat. I had him by C-section, and I hoped that it would not be too painful to hold him close There are so many different ways to hold a baby when breastfeeding, so I wasn’t too worried about that. When Cole was about 5 days old, I had a very bad pain in my stomach. I could not walk, move, eat, or anything. I called my Lactation Consultant, because Cole was having a hard time latching on that day. She came out, helped me with getting Cole to latch on, and I mentioned my pain to her. She looked at my incision, and rushed me to the hospital. In the 10 minutes it took to get there, half my body was infected. They hospitalized me right away, and I was on so much medication that I had to stop breastfeeding. My husband and mother had to feed Cole with formula from a bottle until I was able to get out of the hospital. |
|
|
I decided to pump-and-dump to keep my supply going. I used the hospital pump, and it was a lifesaver. I ended up engorged while in the hospital, and I seemed to be pumping whenever I was awake. I knew that I had to pump to relieve the engorgement, but I did not know that the more you pump, the more milk you make. I was in terrible pain, and I thought it would never end. It was about 6 weeks later when I was able to finally go home. I had to teach this little one to latch on all over again, and it was not easy. I struggled through nipple confusion, shields, which were a mixed blessing, and cracked nipples. Finally, Cole became an expert, and we began to breastfeed successfully. I went back to work about a month after getting out of the hospital, and struggled through supply problems. I did not know about real pumps, nor could I afford them at the time. I ended up with a cheapie brand, which did more harm than good. It broke my heart when Cole self-weaned at about 10 months. Looking back, had I known about nursing strikes, we could have probably avoided this. Then I got pregnant again. This time I was determined to make breastfeeding work. Again, I had no idea what to expect. Please click on the link to the right to read about what happened when I tried to breastfeed Conner. |
|
|
