Please welcome the 1st Time Mom Review Series first guest blogger, Tara Regehr. Tara is a first-time mom of beautiful 8 week old Isla. Tara and Isla live in Port
Coquitlam with husband/daddy Aaron and 2 cats. This is Tara's story about her 1st time mom breastfeeding challenges. To connect with Tara, please check out her blog here. Thanks for sharing Tara!
I am a firm believer that every woman will walk their path in
life the way they choose is right for them. We all make choices in life that we
need to stand behind. As a woman who is a planner, who makes lists, sets goals,
and is a bit of a control freak, entering into motherhood was something I knew
would throw my world into chaos and I was ready for it. I saw my friends with
the dirty dishes in their sinks and stacks of laundry. I saw their frazzled
looks, spit up on their shoulders, bags beneath their eyes. I was ready for the
midnight wake ups, the dirty home, the chance that I'd be late to events or
wouldn't even make it at all. I was prepared. What I wasn't prepared for was the
issue of breastfeeding.
A week before my due date, I found out that my
baby was breech. After unsuccessfully trying a version to flip the baby, my plan
of a completely natural birth went out the window in favor of a planned
c-section. I went through a mourning period for what I wouldn't get to
experience and I had to accept that something I planned (yes it seems strange to
plan for the uncertainty of labour) was now being taken away from me. But when
my baby girl (we didn't know what we were having in advance) was born on
February 9th, right on her actual due date but 24 hours after we arrived at the
hospital for the surgery, I was quite ecstatic that she latched on almost
immediately. When I was 19 I had a breast reduction from a size E to a more
comfortable C. I knew I may not be able to breastfeed, but the doctors reassured
me that because I was so young, I had a great chance. The first day in the
hospital, my newborn fed well and often. She was pretty content. The second
night in the hospital however, we realized that she wasn't getting full so we
supplemented with a little eyedropper of formula. She lost 10% of body weight,
but they released us knowing that we had things under control. The lactation
nurse assured me that my milk would probably come in sooner than later. When we
got home from the hospital, things went downhill quickly. Not only was she not
getting enough milk from me but she stopped latching from the left breast and
didn't always want to feed on my right breast. I had no choice but to start her
on a bottle of formula, something I never wanted to have to do. My best
girlfriend rushed out on our first morning home with a breast pump to talk me
down from the edge.
I spoke to the public health nurse on the phone as well as the
nurses hotline (811) to get advice and as much as I listened to their great
advice and calming words, I felt helpless. I felt like I was a failure to my
child. I felt shame. Yes, it was the hormones talking, but i have never felt so
useless and alone in my life even with a loving husband helping me through it. I
was given these breasts for a reason... to nourish my child and I was failing at
it. She needed me and i couldn't provide. She was crying for me and I was
letting her down. After a trip to the health unit, 2 trips to the doctor, and a
visit with a breastfeeding consultant, all within Isla's first 2 weeks, I was
advised that I was probably producing enough milk but because of missing nerves
from my ducts to the nipple as a result of my surgery 15 years prior, I just
couldn't get enough out. The breastfeeding doctor helped me with new ways to
encourage my baby to latch through the use of a nipple shield. She advised me
that my baby wasn't latching for a variety of reasons including not getting the
satisfaction of milk, my own nerves and hesitation were being transferred to
her, and my wrecked nipples probably didn't encourage a good latch. I tried
harder to relax, used the shield, used a ton of lanolin cream, and gave myself a
little talking to for judging myself so harshly. The fog started to lift. At 16
days old, she started to latch more and more. By 6 weeks, I dropped the shield
entirely and Isla started feeding straight from my breast.
My new
challenge, besides the overwhelming hormones rushing through my body, the
sleepless nights, the sore nipples, learning her cues, the fear of being home
alone with her all day while recovering from a surgery I hadn't wanted, would be
to figure out the tricky balance of breastfeeding and bottle feeding. I wanted
to ensure that she still got nutrients from me while getting the volume of food
she needed from the formula. I will admit that the first month was a complete
emotional roller coaster. This wasn't part of the plan! I wasn't supposed to use
bottles. She was supposed to a a breastfed baby. I had all the covers they tell
you to buy and the creams and the nursing bras and pads. I was ready to
exclusively breastfeed her not to formula feed her. My plan was out the window
and I had to adjust. Okay, I could do this. I would be on a new journey, one
that involved figuring out the best way to prepare and store formula, when to
feed her what, when to pump, the best bottles to use, what wouldn't give her
gas, etc. but I could do this. I made a new plan.
My
baby just turned 8 weeks old and I feel like I've finally figured it out. We
have a good system. I feed her only a bottle at her 2am and 5am feedings, but
all during the day, she gets a boob when she gets a bottle. I will admit that
sometimes she gets on my breast just to calm her down in between feedings, and I
am flexible when I need to be. It isn't a perfect system, but it works for
us.
Beautiful baby Isla - Happy, healthy and well fed.
Perhaps the hardest part of this experience is getting over the
feeling of failure I continue to feel. When I feed my very young daughter a
bottle in public, some people still glance over and I wonder if they are judging
me for not breastfeeding. I will admit that I used to wonder the same thing,
"Why isn't that baby on the boob?". There continues to be a secrecy about the
issues of breastfeeding. It wasn't until I made a very conscious decision right
away to seek support with my problems that I found out how many people in my
life had similar problems. My aunt couldn't do it at all, my mom and my
mother-in-law all had to stop after a few months, and some of my close friends
couldn't produce enough for their babies. I had no idea. No one told me until my
own problems arose. Why are we so open about our lack of sleep and feelings of
being overwhelmed by the responsibility of a new human being in our lives, but
we don't want to talk about the most natural thing on the planet - feeding our
babies? I discovered that many of my mom friends went through all sorts of
breast feeding journeys that i didn't know about. Now that I was a card-carrying
member of the mom-club, I was learning more and more about what they went
through in silence, or at least without my knowledge.
The best advice I can offer new moms is to seek support. Talk
about your feelings. See a professional who will help you. I felt alone until I
reached out. The hormones in your new body will attack you and tell you bad
things. I cried every day for three weeks. But try to relax. You will choose
what is best for you and the baby. You may choose to give up and only formula
feed, and you should never try to rationalize or defend our decision. I found
myself telling strangers or acquaintances that I COULDN'T get enough milk for my
daughter. I shouldn't have said anything at all because it was no ones business
but my own self-shame made me try to explain my situation so I wasn't looked
upon in a bad light for giving my infant anything other than breast milk. Don't
feel ashamed for whatever you decide - own it. This isn't what I would have
chosen, but it is what happened. I've embraced our new path and my daughter Isla
is beautiful and healthy and happy and growing. Being her mom is the best thing
in the world. I've never been happier. And the trials and tribulations are all
just stepping stones in the grand scheme of the long and amazing life we will
have together, and I plan to tell her when she is older that I made the decision
to be the best mom I could be.
Are you a 1st Time Mom and trying to figure it out as you go along too? Feel free to leave me a comment with any questions and I will be more than happy to get back to you. Thanks for reading!
