Leah was our long awaited precious gift after four years of marriage. She was born at home, peacefully surrounded by love and joy. My immense gratitude to G-d for her entrance into our lives overshadowed any 'inconvenience' I might have felt for her insistence on such a strenuous feeding schedule.

Her diapers did not need much changing. Her bowel movements were very infrequent, and the dark meconium usually excreted in the first day or two, took over ten days to be eliminated. She also slept through the night from eleven p.m. until six in the morning. More experienced friends reassured me... "Oh, how lucky for you that she sleeps soundly!" "Wow, you hardly have to change diapers!" When I wondered if she nursed too much, a friend suggested that maybe she had strong sucking needs and really wasn't nursing for nourishment. She thought I should try giving her a pacifier.

But I was against any possibility of causing 'nipple-confusion' with pacifiers and bottles. So we continued to sit in the rocking chair for hours.

My sister with her seven month old, and my parents had come to Israel to celebrate Leah's arrival. When Leah was two weeks old, and they were all departing, my sister told me that soon my baby would sleep beautifully after a feed, start smiling, and I would be able to get back to taking care of other things as well.

But another week passed with no change in our 'pattern'. Concerned, I invited a lactation consultant, an expert on the challenges of nursing, to visit us and check to see if everything was okay. Since I hadn't been in the hospital, I figured that maybe I could use the guidance of a specialist to make sure we were doing things right.

Batya Davis showed up for our appointment and found everything in order. Leah was latching on just fine, and I seemed to have milk. She checked the diaper pail and said the diapers looked very wet. "Yes, but their soaking in detergent, so how can you tell?" I asked anxiously.

Batya frowned. She said I should take my daughter to a doctor to be weighed. I had recently weighed her on a scale in the grocery store. She was 3.33 kilo, down from the 3.45 kilo when she was born. "Shouldn't she have regained her birth weight by now?" I asked..

"Well, every baby gains weight differently, some more slowly. But you really should take her to a pediatrician."

"Yeah, but they all push formula!"

Batya told me the names of two "pro-nursing' doctors she recommended and said they were both very supportive. But I didn't go. I didn't want to hear lectures about weigh-ins, growth charts, and vaccinations

More weeks went by. Our daughter never napped. "Oh, she's so alert! She must be very intelligent," a neighbor crooned. By the end of the day, we both passed out and slept soundly. I didn't realize that she just didn't have any energy to awaken for a night feeding. The only rest I had during the day, was when I put her in a baby carrier and went for a walk. The rocking movement of my stride always knocked her out.

When I went for my six week check up, I mentioned my concerns to my midwife. She thought Leah looked petite but I, on the other hand, looked exhausted, uptight and strung out. "Are you eating and drinking enough?" She asked.

I assured her that nutrition was very important to me and I was consuming everything that anyone anywhere had ever written was good for nursing: plenty of whole grains, proteins, lots of liquids, special herbs and teas, and seeds and nuts.

"And I'm nursing ALL the Time!" I emphasized.

Finally, a week later, I read in one of our baby books that a two month old is a whir of activity. When you try to change their diaper, they are a wiggling, jiggling jitter of arms and legs waving and kicking. That day, when Leah lay on the changing table, she didn't move at all. Her eyes just stared at me very seriously and something inside of me snapped.

We hadn't been taking any baby pictures for at least a month, I realized suddenly, because she looked so...so....scrawny, so 'woe-is-me'. Not plump and happy. She continued to stare at me and I gazed back in shock, as though I was seeing her for the first time.

"Oh G-d", I started to sob. I picked her up and ran to the phone to call Batya.

"What were the names and phone numbers of those pediatricians you told me about? There is definitely something very, very wrong!" I cried.

It was a Friday morning in July. I called the number of the closest doctor and wailed into the phone. He made an appointment to see us as soon as possible that morning.

Sitting in the examination room, looking at Leah lying on the table without any clothes on, I saw her with the objectivity that I usually lacked. She looked pathetic.

Dr. David Matar was very kind. He asked all kinds of questions about the pregnancy and birth and was surprised at how affirmatively I responded. I loved pregnancy, I loved giving birth, I loved my baby. What was wrong?? I gave him all the details of my medical history including my concern that radiation treatment to my chest ten years earlier, for cancer treatment, could have destroyed milk-production cells. The doctor raised his eyes and shook his head. He'd never encountered anything in the medical literature about such a connection, but it sounded feasible. He also thought the thyroid hormone I took daily might need to be adjusted.

So there were two possibilities: One was that there was something inadequate about the quantity or the quality of my milk. The more serious possibility was that there was something wrong with our daughter's digestive system. I felt close to being hysterical. The doctor didn't condemn me for not showing up sooner, or for rejecting the well/baby clinic weigh-in check ups and the standard vaccinations she would have been subjected to there. He was very understanding and sympathetic. The point right then was to determine what was going on with our baby and not argue about our somewhat radical view towards standard medical establishment practices.

"Look, you have to give her supplement for one week, just to determine if her system can digest food." He gently explained.

"No cow formula! My whole family is allergic to milk" I protested. So he wrote down the names of three soy formulas instead. He also gave me a slip for getting my milk analyzed by a Professor at Sharei Tzedek hospital.

When we left I headed into town to find a pharmacy that sold not only formula, but something I recalled hearing about from a friend who had had twins. A nursing supplement system. Some kind of bottle that you can hang around your neck and use to supply supplement WHILE you nurse. Three pharmacies told me they never heard of it. In tears of frustration I stopped in a store to use the phone and call my friend.

As soon as I heard Chaya's voice on the other end of the line, the dam holding back my strong emotions finally burst. I started sobbing as I told her that the doctor said my baby was starving!

"I have to find a nursing supplement! Where did you get yours"! As I held the line, Chaya ran to search for the phone number of the woman who sold the product.

Relieved, I called Mrs. Podulsky, and explained what I needed. She told me the cost and then I realized she was selling a protein powder for me to eat to increase my milk supply!

I quickly called back Chaya and re-explained more coherently what I needed.

"Oh Raizel! I have that special bottle in my house! You can borrow it! I'm coming right over!"

I hung up the phone, thanked the store owner, and anxiously ran to our apartment two blocks away. Chaya arrived within moments of me. She mixed the formula while I took Leah out of the baby carrier and settled us into our red rocking chair.

Chaya only told me much later how nervous she was that Leah would throw up and have to be hospitalized, but she prepared the special nursing supplement system and showed me how to adjust the string around my neck. Instead of a nipple, the bottle was designed with two very fine thin tubes that slipped unnoticed into the baby's mouth while she was latched onto me. In this way, Leah could continue to stimulate my body to produce milk, while getting some soy formula at the same time.

The moment of truth had arrived. Within fifteen minutes, Leah finished the entire 500cc's of supplement. And then she did an amazing thing. She laughed! Chaya and I both heard her and together we started crying with profound relief. Leah laughed!!

And then she did another amazing thing. She fell asleep and slept soundly for two hours straight!!

My relief was so enormous it is hard to describe in writing. She didn't have any negative reactions. She didn't throw up. Her digestive system was working fine! She slept. She woke up. She ate more. She slept. And she SMILED!

A whole week went by and then we returned to the doctor. I undressed Leah and Dr. Matar put her on the scale. She had gained 500 grams in seven days!! What rejoicing! Within another week she gained an entire kilo! The doctor thought we were doing great. He wasn't worried anymore. The lab analysis of my milk was fine, there just obviously wasn't enough quantity. But Leah was handling the soy formula just fine. He told me that the reason my baby had become so listless, was so her body could conserve its energy. Whatever nutrition she had managed to get from me had all gone to nourish her brain. Therefore, he was sure that Leah had not, G-d forbid, suffered any permanent brain damage.

And I learned a tremendous lesson in humility from this close call. How vividly I remember attending a seminar when I was pregnant with Leah and watching one woman with disdain as she bottle fed her baby. I sat there feeling sorry for the poor kid whose mother wasn't nursing him. Young, naive and idealistic, it did not occur to me that a woman might not always have the option to nurse!

We never discovered the reason that my body did not produce enough milk for our baby to grow, but I did discover a lifesaving product-an SNS-a Supplemental Nursing System-a small bottle that hangs upside down around your neck, like a necklace, has enabled me to nurse all my children-seven of them so far, some for as long as two years. I always need to use some formula, but I never wait seven weeks to find out if I should. I start right away. Most women I know never seem to hear about this admirable little invention, which is one of the reasons I wanted to share this story. All the advantages of that special nursing bond are available even to the woman with an inadequate milk supply. May that bond serve to help us well in the years ahead, through all the challenges of child raising!

Note: One version of the SNS is produced by Medela. It can also help mothers of preemies, twins and even adoptive mothers establish an adequate milk supply to nurse their babies. Though these bottles can be ordered directly online, it is best to consult with an expert before deciding this is what is right for you and your baby.