I'm not a writer but I am always compelled to
share my first nursing experience. I guess I'll
call it "Nursing is easy, right."
I attended La Leche League meetings a year before my first child, Max,
was born. Due to an experienced breastfeeding
sister-in-law, I knew I would not choose any
other way to feed my baby. Max was unexpectedly born On September
24, 1999. My water broke on the 23rd and I was induced on the 24th.
The labor went as much to my plans as possible. I had no medication except the pitocin to start labor and some antibiotics
to ward off possible infection. I was in
"real labor" for only about 5 hours and pushed him out in 10 minutes. He was born at 8:08 am weighing 8 lbs, 8
oz. With only 2 stitches and no drugs I felt
fabulous after the birth. I held my new baby skin-to-skin
the whole day. My first nursing attempt was in the delivery room
but he was not interested. I shrugged it off figuring some babies don't want to nurse right away.
The night he was born I had my sister-in-law,
Julie, also a La Leche League leader, try to help me get started
and since I had been leaking "milk" since my 4th month of
pregnancy, I knew I could feed my baby.
No one ever told me (and for some reason it never occurred to me) that
I had flat nipples. I was told by the hospital
lactation consultant, Angie, how to stretch my
nipples to help them stick out. What they say is true about
having a baby, that dignity goes down the toilet. Some woman pulling on my nipples and taking off my baby's clothes to wake
him was not how I envisioned my first nursing
experience.
Angie and I worked for awhile to get Max to latch on and eventually he did. But being born 2 weeks early he was very, very
sleepy. He would latch on and fall asleep. Dead
asleep. A train would not have awakened him. Angie
brought me an electric pump and got me on a pumping regimen and we spoon fed him the colostrum. Finally on the 26th he
latched on and nursed for 10 minutes on each
side. I just knew at that point my troubles were over.
I told Angie that me taking the pump home and renting it would not be necessary. She told me she was very happy that he had
nursed but encouraged me strongly to rent the
pump. I am so glad she did.
My brother and his wife came over with dinner the night my husband,
Tom, and I brought Max home. We ate our
celebratory dinner of steak and shrimp and Max
began to cry for something to eat. I took him in the other room ( I was so discreet then) and tried to get him to nurse.
This time he screamed and arched his back and
would not latch on. I tried for about ten minutes but,
in tears myself, gave up. Tom poured some of the pumped milk into a syringe with a long thin feeding tube like they had
showed us in the hospital, and Max sucked the
milk down from his father's overturned finger.
To make a long story short (too late, right). For two and a half
weeks, Max decided that he wanted to get my milk
from the syringe. At each feeding, I would try
to nurse him, he would refuse by sleeping or screaming, my
husband or I would feed him pumped milk from the syringe, and I would pump more milk for next time. And three hours after
that, the whole cycle would start again...I only
had the best support from my husband and family.
My determination to nurse and the little voice in my head that said he
would eventually do it, kept me going. I felt a
little like I had failed. I had "planned"
everything so well. I had no birth medications, I kept my baby with
me all the time in the hospital, and made sure he had no pacifiers, formula, or sugar water. What else could I have done?
The answer is nothing. I was doing everything I
could and he just wasn't ready when he was born.
Max is now a happy nursing 4 1/2 month old and is 17 lbs. He nurses 5 minutes a side every three hours and sleeps from 8-10
hours at night. He still spits up a lot, but
who's complaining? He is the best baby I could have
asked for and many people ask to buy him from me on a regular basis. I have to tell them he's all mine!
Breastfeeding
Reading
Room
