Marybeth's Breastfeeding Journey

Marybeth's case was extremely complex and required very thorough and frequent follow ups. This is another story of a baby nursing, nursing, nursing and dropping weight. Women are told to nurse more, its supply and demand! If the latch is not functioning properly, the baby is not able to get the milk up and running. If this goes on too long, mom loses her ability to bring her milk in. Its a very delicate balance. Marybeth totally soldiered through a very complicated situation and Callie is now twenty months and breastfeeding!  Go Marybeth and Callie! This is Marybeth's Journey...

"Callie is my second baby. I had nursed my first until two-and-a-half when I was nearly seven months pregnant. She was slow to latch in the beginning, but I had been induced and had an epidural. Once she started nursing, she had no issues. She was the typical chubby infant, loved to nurse, almost never cried and barely slept.

I expected things to also go smoothly with Callie and possibly better. I had a natural labor this time around and she latched within the first hour. She nursed all through the first night and had plenty of wet diapers. She was slow to pass her meconium, but the lactation consultants at the hospital looked at her chart and didn’t seem concerned. She was nursing nearly constantly and crying a lot. By the time we left the hospital, she had lost five ounces, but nobody seemed concerned. She was born on a Sunday, we were released Tuesday and we saw the pediatrician on Thursday. At that point, she had lost another two ounces. They wanted me to nurse every two hours, day and night and come back again on Saturday for another weight check. By Saturday, she had lost another two ounces. They were still not overly concerned, since she was pooping and peeing. They wanted me to continue to nurse her every two hours and report back on Monday for another weight check.

     All weekend, we nursed. As soon as she would fall asleep and pop off, I would hand her off and she would start crying again. There wasn’t really a way to nurse her every two hours, because she was basically always nursing. There was a point on Sunday afternoon where she nursed for two-and-a-half hours straight. When Monday came, I didn’t see how there was a way that she could have lost any more weight. How could a baby be constantly attached and nursing and not gain weight?

I broke down when they put her on the scale and she had lost even more ounces. She had gone from a smallish 6lb 12oz to a sickly 5lb 13oz. She also hadn’t pooped since Saturday. The nurse practitioner had me stop nursing and start pumping, feeding her an ounce of milk every hour. When I asked if I should call a lactation consultant, the NP said to wait another day and see what happened.  We were due back again on Wednesday for another weight check.

     Naively, I thought that it had to be an underlying health issue. I could see her nursing and hear her swallowing. There couldn’t be any possible way that it had something to do with our breastfeeding relationship. I wasn’t new to breastfeeding. It had to be something else. I started pumping and feeding Callie the expressed milk. After she got the first bottle, she wanted nothing to do with nursing. Against the advice of the NP, I pulled out my hospital paperwork to find a lactation consultant. That’s when I found Dana. I scheduled an appointment online for the next day, listing our problems in the comments. Dana called me back within a few hours to make sure that Callie was getting fed somehow. I assured her that we would be fine and would see her the next day.

     I remember going into the office and wondering what we were doing there. Since Callie was no longer latching, I didn’t see what she could/would do for us. I stripped Callie down and we weighed her. She had gained an ounce! My milk was working, but it wasn’t getting delivered to her the way I had planned. We talked about the issues Callie and I were having and my prior breastfeeding history. During all of this, Dana tried to latch Callie on with no success.  

     I had an embarrassing pumping session while we chatted. Dana told me that she’d seen some really sad cases lately where mom had no milk or thought there were no problems and instead it turned into a nursing nightmare. Again, naively I thought that would never be me. I was so wrong. As the pump ran and very little milk came out of my breasts, we talked about what likely had happened. Callie was not nursing effectively and because of this, my full milk supply was not coming in. I would have to start pumping more intensely, round the clock. Until I had enough milk to feed Callie, I would have to supplement with formula. Before this, formula had seemed like the enemy or something made for moms who didn’t try hard enough to breastfeed. Now, it would be the way that I would keep my baby alive until I could make enough milk to support her.

     I left the office and cried the entire way home. I would never be able to share the bond with Callie that I did with my first child because I couldn’t breastfeed her. I was failing at this. I cried on and off and pumped round the clock. It was a dark week, but I had to keep going. I had a family to take care of and milk to make. When I wasn’t pumping and crying, I was either holding Callie while she slept, wearing her, holding her skin-to-skin or feeding her a bottle. My older daughter started pretending to pump, when I wasn’t attached to it. It was little funny moments like this and finding normal things to do every day that helped me get through.

     We saw Dana the next week and the next week and the next week. Dana talked about how much Callie was like another one of her clients and we were probably in the running for most visits. We started seeing a massage therapist for cranial sacral therapy to possibly help with her latching.

Somewhere between one month and six weeks, Callie started latching. It was right around that time that I came to terms with the fact that she would likely never latch and I was thinking about our next steps. Because of all of her issues, I couldn’t stop pumping without talking to Dana first. After our next appointment, Dana gave us the go ahead to stop pumping, other than to build a work stash, and solely nurse. She gained six ounces that week on nursing alone! I was overjoyed and relieved.

The following week’s weigh in was like a punch in the gut. She gained no weight. The roller coaster of emotions that I felt from one week to the next was too much. We kept nursing, but I added pumps back in, along with small supplemental bottles to keep her gaining weight. It wasn’t the breastfeeding relationship I had pictured, but it was how we would do it. Somehow, I felt peace with this decision.

     I went back to work at 12 weeks and kept up with pumping, plus extra pumps to make supplements. We dealt with some overfeeding issues with daycare, but made it through, still nursing when we were together. I was always stressed about the milk quota and the time away for pump breaks. I was pretty crazy with all of it. I dropped the extra pumps and supplemental bottles around the nine-month mark. I was terrified that it would derail everything, but we made it through. I dropped my work pumps at a year. Again, I felt a lot of anxiety and worry over possibly losing my supply and everything we had worked so hard for.

     Here we are at 20 months still nursing. I didn’t think we would make it this far. At times Callie nurses with a desperation, holding onto my breast with all of her might, as if she remembers those weeks that she was without it. Our days of nursing are numbered, as she slowly grows out of toddlerhood and we start the journey into slow weaning. There are times when I’m exhausted and touched out and wish we had taken a different path. But, in my heart, I know this is how it was meant to play out."  Marybeth