The Third Time is the Charm

by Leila Cervantez

I am a proud mom of three beautiful girls ages 13, 10 and 3 months. I have always known about the benefits of breastfeeding and when I had my first daughter I had planned to do nothing else.

Well, when my daughter came into the world via c-section I knew I had some obstacles to over come but I had read about all the different positions. When I tried these positions while I was in the hospital I was told by the lactation consultant that, "the football hold won't work for you."

I was in so much pain, I had a lot of trouble holding my baby in the cradle hold and she would not latch on correctly.

The lactation consultant kept taking her off and needless to say my nipples cracked and bled by the time I went home.

Our first night at home was rough and I decided I was not going to breastfeed since my nipples were bleeding. I was in pain from the surgery and I did not want to put my baby and myself through any more stress.

Needless to say she is now lactose intolerant and has problems with allergies and skin rashes.

Three years later I had my second daughter and I took breastfeeding classes again.   I read a lot about it but in the hospital. I did not want anyone to help me since my last experience with a lactation consultant was so bad.

When my second daughter was born I told them that I was going to bottle feed and I knew that when I got home I would latch that baby right on and go from there... boy was I wrong! She was use to the fast and easy flow of the bottle and would not even open her mouth wide enough to take the breast.

I called for outside help from our local LLL and she came over twice and spent about an hour with me each time. She told me that I needed to nurse her every 30 minutes and I thought she was out of her mind. I wondered if she had noticed my three year old walking around the room and attempting to rearrange things. I did not have time for this.

The baby never even latched on even after an hour so. I went to rent a pump and I pumped for about six weeks but my supply was low because I was supplementing and I had started back to work.

Then to make things worse my menstrual cycle arrived and I was bleeding very heavy.
I went to my Dr. and he said that I needed to stop pumping because it was causing too much heavy bleeding.

So I did... Now I know that he was wrong.

Well, here I am10 years later working as a nurse and a breastfeeding educator / childbirth educator. I learned more about breast-feeding and it made me sad that I could have breastfed my first two children had I had a better breastfeeding counselor.

I recently had my third daughter and as soon as they let me I put her to my breast and she took it without even thinking twice. I say, she must have been listening when I would teach all those moms while I was pregnant.

She is now three months old and is still nursing and taking breast milk from a bottle when we are apart.

My oldest daughter never got to have breast milk and just the other day she asked if she could taste it from the babies bottle so I let her and I felt this pain in my heart because she was the only one that did not get her mommy's milk.

It took three tries but now I am exclusively breastfeeding my baby and I am loving every minute of it and so is she. I am glad I have the opportunity to encourage moms to breastfeed their babies.

When they see that I work full time, teach childbirth classes two nights a week and I am currently enrolled in an RN program I hope that they see that there is no obstacle too big that will interfere with breastfeeding their babies.