Milking it for All it's Worth.

I have many flaws, though most of them are kept in where others can not meet them. One major flaw is that I am competitive over the most ridiculous and normal things. Like who is a better artist, who lasted in her relationship longer, who had the easier/harder past, etc. But I will never say these things out loud to you. I keep them in. You won't know I am competing with you. You wont even know if you are the winner. But sometimes you are. Looking back, most of these competitions were with my mother. I LOVE YOU, MOM!!! This is the one thing I hate most about myself, and yes, I am working on correcting this.

Point being, when I got pregnant with my oldest, my mother reminded me that she had delivered all four of us without an epidural. The internal competition began. If my mom could do it, I could too. And I did, and it is something I try hard NOT to brag about, because delivering Haylie without an epidural does not make me MORE of a mom than one who delivers their child WITH the epidural.

The other thing my mother told me, was that she had breastfed all of us for a year. Now, at this time, breastfeeding was all I knew. I honestly did not know that formula existed. I just thought everyone breastfed. There was no question in my mind that I would breastfeed my children, and that I would go a full year, like my mom.

So when Haylie was born and I couldn't get her to latch and my milk wasn't coming in and the nurse told me we would have to supplement (and I'm going, what the heck does that mean?) I was devastated and I cried. I cried that whole first night because I felt like such a failure. The lactation consultant was so kind and patient with me, she would come in every couple hours and help me position Haylie, show me different holds, show me tricks and she gave me a nipple shield that had a slender tube filtering sugar water through the shield into Haylie's mouth. She would eat like that and I gained hope, though this would result in nipple confusion and I would continue to use the nipple shield until we weaned at 9 1/2 months. Haylie was groggy when she was born though, from the stress of almost 3 hours of pushing, after being induced. She obviously was not ready to come out and I feel awful for forcing her from her warm and safe home, something I apologized for during many late night feedings when we were both irritated and bawling and trying to get a decent latch. Almost all of our night feedings those first few months resulted in both of us crying.

But something else you should know about me, I am stubborn. I was determined to give her breastmilk. Luckily, I was given a breast pump from the WIC breastfeeding consultant/instructor. It was a hand pump, but it was well used during it's short life time. I pumped for Haylie and would give it to her in a bottle, because the bottle was so much easier for her to get a sufficient suction on. But gradually, we needed the bottle less, and soon we didn't need it at all. I could get her to latch by 'tricking' her with my best friend, the nipple shield. By 8 months we only had to use the nipple shield once a day. I was confident we would make it to a year.

Shortly before my 21st birthday, feedings became difficult again. Difficult like they were in the beginning. I was losing sleep, I was stressed out and irritable and I was feeling alone. I started building myself a back up plan. I started mentioning things like "I think I'll wean her soon." But in reality, the struggle was just too much for me and I was losing control and I couldn't admit that. We weaned at 9 1/2 months. One week after I turned 21. I say 'we' but it was more me. I stopped offering the breast and gave her a bottle, and she didn't even notice. It was like she was saying, "It's okay, Mom." I could have kept pumping, but I was so broken hearted over our struggle that I just wanted to be done. So, I failed.

When we found we were pregnant with Alexis I was scared. I began looking more into breastfeeding, I gained an online support group for breastfeeding. I began giving myself a pep talk. This time I was not competing with anyone but myself. I said, "I may not make it the full year, but we'll hit 10 months! I will make it happen!" Yes, I just wanted to breastfeed her longer than I had breastfed Haylie.

Then cesarean-section. Everything came crumbling down and I started hunting out success stories. Women who breastfed after a c-section. I HAD to know that we could do it. I HAD to know we had a chance. Only a few stories I found were exactly what I wanted to hear, and I had looked up hundreds. But this was enough to give me hope. The day of the c-section on the long drive over to Spokane, I prayed that the c-section would go smoothly, that both of us would be perfectly healthy and that we would be able to breastfeed.

The c-section went smoothly, I held my breath, a knot in my stomach until I heard Lexi cry. And then there she was. And she was perfect and I was scared that I would fail her. Brandon was led with her out of the room so I could be sewn back up. I was wheeled to recovery and as soon as I could wiggle my toes Brandon was able to bring Alexis in to see me. She wasn't hungry. And the anticipation was killing me. I was worried that we would have a rocky start, or no start at all.

Then the moment of truth.

Alexis started rooting around and I opened my gown and voila! It was like magic. I was shocked. It was like we had been doing this forever. The nurse chuckled and said "You're both pros!" And all I could do was beam from ear to ear and try not to shed tears of joy. I had never experienced anything as easy as breastfeeding Lexi was! It took over a week (almost two) for my milk to come in, but she was having wet diapers regularly, so I knew she was getting what she needed. When my milk did come in, BAM! The worst pain I had ever felt in my life. Worse than being induced delivering Haylie without the epidural. But every latch was perfect and I refused to buy a pump (though the thought kept popping up and I would blurt it out loud, and secretly jump for joy when Brandon would say 'later' or 'you don't need it.'), so I would grit my teeth and try to keep from shaking, though that was near impossible.

The pain lasted almost 2 months. But it was worth it. She was a natural, and there was no way I was screwing that up by supplementing, or pumping to feed from the source less often. Sometimes a pump would have been nice, like when we went to the Newsboys concert and I hand squeezed over 4 ounces of breastmilk out for a bottle I wasn't even sure she would take (and she didn't take). But here we are, she is 11 1/2 months old, just now really getting into solid food, still never using a bottle or sippie and still breastfeeding like a champ. We'll be breastfeeding for a long while yet, I can tell, and I'm milking it for all it's worth. Pun intended.