The truth about breastfeeding

Breastfeeding.  I thought I had it all planned out.  Of course I was going to breastfeed my baby.  It's a time to bond with your baby and mother's milk is so much more nutritional for the baby, plus who wants to pay for formula when you can feed for free?!  It was going to be so easy...the mothers in the church nursery make it look easy.

Wrong!

I'm sure for some people breastfeeding was a piece of cake.  I am not one of those people.  When the nurses handed Ren to be for the first time I loved and cuddled with him while still laying on the labor and delivery bed.  Then my mom suggested trying to feed him.  I was so excited because he latched on right away (of course I knew what I was doing...I even knew the vocabulary like "latching on").  In the hospital I would feed him every two hours or so.  My good friend Erica (who works at the hospital) came to visit and gave me tips and set me up with a hospital grade breast pump for a one month rental. When it was time to go home I was confident and ready to feed my growing baby.

**This post contains a lot of text so I'll break it up with adorable pictures of Ren**

Well...I'm pretty sure that I have run into every possible problem you could have with nursing.

The first week Ren decided to go on a nursing strike.  He just refused to nurse at all.  He would arch his back, cry and root around looking for the food when it was right there for him.  I had to pump every two hours because he would only drink from a bottle.  After a visit to the lactation consultant at our pediatrician's office I learned some techniques for getting him to nurse which really helped.

The second week was rough because Ren started chomping down when feeding.  It was killer!  I seriously dreaded time to feed him because it hurt so bad.  He even made me bleed!  So it was back to the lactation consultant for some "suck training." She told me that because they had to deep suction him when he was first born he has a natural response to clench his jaw when something is in his mouth.

Soon after that I developed mastitis.  Oh my is that painful!!!  J was out of town for work so I was already staying at my parent's house for a few days which was good because I was useless.  It was almost as if I had the flu.  I kept a fever of 101.4 for a couple of days complete with chills and hot flashes.  During this time my grandmother was visiting from Florida and I pretty much fed Ren, handed him to grandmother, went to sleep, fed Ren, handed him to grandmother, went to sleep...repeat for 24 hours.  I ended up going to the doctor and getting on an antibiotic for 10 days.  

Now here we are in present day.  The mastitis has gone and apparently so has my milk supply.  I wouldn't really know it except I had Ren's weight check done one his one month birthday and he was just under 10lbs.  He had only gained 2oz in 11 days and still wasn't up to his birth weight.  The lactation consultant had me nursing him then pumping right after and feeding him whatever I could get by pumping.  I took him back to get weighed again today and he is exactly the same...no weight gain for four days.  SO...for the next two days I have to pump in place of nursing and supplement formula (formula!!) to get enough to feed my child.  This was not how it was supposed to be.  I wasn't going to use formula, but its what is best for Ren right now because he needs to gain weight.  

I have found myself saying over the last month that "breastfeeding is for the birds" yet I have just kept on going.  Hopefully we will get some meat on my boy, even if it means formula from here on out.

So that's my breastfeeding story.  I hope you have had better luck if this is the track you are on, or that you don't get discouraged if it doesn't work out the way you planned.