With that said, I never thought breastfeeding would be a journey but more something that just happens. When I found out I was pregnant, aside from being absolutely ecstatic, I had the perfect plan for breastfeeding when the baby is here. My plan was "just breastfeed" not much else really. I figured that breastfeeding is a natural thing to do so it will just work out.
I guess the red flags that things don't always happen as you imagine them started when I found out I had gestational diabetes. This was definitely not part of the plan.
Fast forward to October 27th and hurray! baby K is here. That lasted for maybe a minute before I was bombarded with nurse advices on how to breastfeed. First thing I learned, they are most definitely not on the same page. With every nurse that was on duty, I received a different advice. It was a nightmare and frustrating. At the beginning, baby K seemed to be always hungry and not getting full from the breast alone. So after hearing him cry, I caved in and supplemented with formula using the syringe method.
Two days later we get home and I stand in my living room having no idea what to do. Baby K is sleeping what do I do now? That also lasted for not that long until it was time for feeding. I was trying to resist formula so each feeding lasted for about 1.5 hours. I usually got a 30 minute break and we were back at it again. The whole time, the baby seemed to be hungry, so again we supplemented with formula. Couple of weeks went by and I was getting frustrated because I had no idea whether I had enough milk or not. I mean the odds of you not getting enough milk are actually low. So one day, I handed over the baby to my hubby and asked him to give the baby some formula so I can pump. Baby K had just eaten (for 1.5 hours) and I managed to pump 4 oz. Aha! what's going on here? Clearly, I had enough food.. hurray (for a minute) onto the next task. Why is the baby not getting enough milk? Long story short, my baby was lip tied and had posterior tongue tie. How did I figure this out, from lots of googling. It's really sad that I had to figure this out on my own.
I took the baby to an ENT doctor and he confirmed my findings but said the way the procedure is done at the hospital is invasive and the baby is too young for that. Great, so I went home and started pumping like crazy and googled exclusive pumping advice. Then,I finally wised up and met with a lactation consultant so we can come up with plan to exclusively pump and not lose my milk supply. After meeting with her and having a plan to continue pumping, she pointed out a doctor who does the procedure with laser and it takes maybe 5 minutes and it's done. There are more benefits other than correctly breastfeeding to get the procedure done (more on that in another pot). So we went ahead and did it, except I had stopped putting the baby at my breast prior to the procedure and even though everything was as it should be, baby wouldn't latch any more. At this point, I was too tired to try to get him to latch again, and I was going back to work soon, so I stuck with exclusively pumping.
It's been almost 3 months now that I'm exclusively pumping and it's going great. One of the big reasons it's working for me, is the fact that my work is very flexible. I am a software engineer and I am able to pump at my desk. Honestly, I feel very lucky that I am able to do so. Anywhere else, this probably wouldn't be the case and my pumping experience would be nightmarish.
Looking back at how things went, I would do few things differently. I should have never stop giving the breast to my baby even if I was mostly pumping. I guess one of the big mistakes I made was I never met with a lactation consultant before and right after the delivery. Had I done it, things would have went smoother.
So If you are interested in breastfeeding and you are a first time mom my advice to you, meet with a lactation consultant. Having a knowledgeable person right there is so much better than googling everything because the information you will receive will be consistent. Most insurances will actually cover this.
I hope my post will be of help to someone out there! How was your experience?
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