Our story

I was in the grocery store with my adorable boy in the front of the cart and the man stocking the shelves told me to recognize that this was a great time in my life and to cherish it. I was totally with him until he added that it only goes downhill from here and that he would love his 23 year old daughter to be an infant again. I felt horrible because if it only goes downhill then I want off this ride! Not much compares to the frustration of being a caregiver to someone who has communication issues. Babies do communicate, we just don't always meet on the same wavelength. I mentioned my experience on Facebook and a friend said that she missed her kids being this young. I felt even worse. Is it true? Is this the best time of our life? I think no. Others do too. This Ted talk is great because it speaks the truth about the happiness factor of adding children to your family.




I wanted to share our a taste of our life until now. This is part of an email I wrote to The Alpha Parent for her Triumphant Tuesday. The blog is a fantastic site and source of inspiration for any breastfeeding family. Oh, it does take a family to keep it up. Without support, the ship will sink. 

(Check out the Alpha Parent's Timeline of a Breastfed Baby, Breastfeeding Requires Effort)

We planned to have a natural childbirth and breastfeed. Planning and doing are not always the same thing as I came to find out during labor. My son was past due by 2 weeks and weighed 10lb 8 oz at birth. He was so large that he got stuck and broke his collarbone on his way out. To say that I was grateful for the epidural during the 26 hours of labor and 4 hours of pushing is the understatement of the century. After he was born our plan of having him laid on my chest and being able to breastfeed him right away was stalled by tests and my weakened state. He was taken by the infant care unit and they placed a line in his arm for an IV and he was given a long list of tests to make sure he hadn't been injured further. He was beautiful and I was barely conscious.   I couldn't even swallow sips of water without choking because I was so exhausted. With time I was excited to regain some strength and have my son with us and thought that we would just breastfeed naturally. After all, I was built to do this so how hard could it be? Well, as they say nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Because my son was so large and I was so weak we were told that I needed to supplement. I fought it but the lactation consultant was not in that day and I had to go off of the advice of the nurse who was all too happy to give my son the free formula. I knew he was large but would I have a newborn who really needed 3 ounce servings? According to the nurse I did. So, we supplemented. The nurse brought me a pump to try to stimulate my milk coming in but we didn't make nearly as much as he was drinking. It was depressing, I spiraled into the baby blues quickly. I felt inadequate and under-prepared for motherhood. After we were discharged I wanted so desperately to never see a bottle again but he was so hungry and the milk wasn't coming in fast enough. Had I known to just put him to the breast so I could build my supply we might have had more success sooner. 

Latching difficulties began early on. My son was so eager for food that he latched hard and it was extremely painful. I kept seeing the consultant and it wasn't until my mother-in-law commented on my husband being a tongue tied baby that I realized that he had the same problem. From there we had to find a doctor to clip it for us. It was so very obvious when he opened his mouth. You could see the very tip of his tongue was attached and when he cried out it curled up on both sides making a V. Since breastfeeding is not always the normal feeding method in America, the doctors are no longer looking for tongue tied infants so he was overlooked. We spent 3 weeks trying to get it fixed and it wasn't until we had to show up at the hospital and show him latching improperly and my pain with his latch that they took us seriously and we were sent to maxillofacial surgeons. For something so simple, it was becoming extremely complicated. Standing in a room filled with doctors for something that should be a quick fix was absurd. I once again felt helpless and defeated. To complicate matters worse, feeding was so difficult that he was being bottle fed more than breast fed so my supply wasn't where it should have been. It took weeks to make up for lost time. 

To add to the list of 'what else can possibly go wrong now', I got thrush. Bad thrush. We had to diagnose it and fight to be taken seriously with it. I had cracks on my nipples that were painful, deep and everywhere. Half of the latches would result in my baby having a mouthful of blood. The other half I just closed my eyes and prayed for the feeding to be over. I felt like I lived in fear of feeding my son. I was taking Percocet to deal with the pain because it was so bad. We had been given antibiotics in the hospital when he was born and that had depleted our systems. To treat the thrush, they gave me more antibiotics, creams and drops for his mouth. 3 weeks consisting of 2 rounds of the treatment and no change. I didn't want to shower because the water was horrible on my chest, I wanted nothing to touch me, it was excruciating. I was also feeling deep pains in my breasts once he started feeding and these lasted until up to two hours after feeding. Since my son feeds quite a bit, that made the pain a round the clock event. I became even more depressed  That is when I decided that if I could just make it to 6 months, I could stop there. I was determined not to quit. My husband's mother breastfed him until 3 so I had an amazing role model and she had sent me a copy of "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" which I read cover to cover three times during all of this. I still use it as a reference guide and give it to new parents.

I did hours of research online regarding thrush and found that a simple over the counter dye could treat thrush. Why had I not heard of this? Why had my doctors and lactation consultant not heard of this? The answer was very simple. There is not money to be had by drug companies when people can fix their own problems. I bought a bottle of Gentian Violet online and used it. Within 24 hours, the latch pain was over. The burning was over. The only thing left was deep throbbing pain. 

My lactation consultant, who I was seeing every single week and calling constantly was a gem. She was determined to help me through it all. She had asked me how committed I was and wouldn't quit looking for answers to my questions. At this point, we pretty much already had a Bingo. I had survived:

---supplementation by the hospital staff, 

---bad latches, 

---thrush, 

---mastitis,

---a plugged duct (from my baby being so large that the chest carrier was pushing down and plugging things), 

---peer pressure from unhelpful friends and family who said it wasn't worth all the hassle and another who said that breastfeeding "wasn't normal. That is why we have formula so we don't have to be so stuck in old ways."

---one inverted nipple (ouch!)

---difficult birth and large size

---tongue tie and incompetent medical staff

---and an unknown deep throbbing persistent pain

When the pain wouldn't leave my lactation consultant started asking me to do a series of tests. I was supposed to look at the nipple and watch for color changes. I had to try feeding after warming my breasts and after cooling them off. She then asked me if I had ever had trauma to the breasts. I had been in a car accident at the start of my pregnancy. A woman was on her phone while speeding and had hit me head on. The seat belt was so tight that it created huge bruised sections of my breasts. She had figured out the last barrier....Raynaud's 

What in the heck is Raynaud's Phenomenon? My doctor asked the same thing. Not a single doctor at my hospital had heard of it for breastfeeding. The lactation consultant we had been seeing said that she had only ever heard of one case of it before and had to print journal studies out for our medical staff to read through. The car accident severely damaged the breast tissue and I need blood pressure medicine to act as a vasodialator to stop the pain. Whenever it gets even a bit chilly the whole area shuts down and the pain starts. To counter this, the vasodialator keeps the veins open and the pain stays away. I was put on the smallest dose and eventually worked up to the maximum dosage 4 times a day. Additionally I have to keep warm. Anytime it gets cold the pain comes back, the nipple goes bright white and the breast starts to turn blue and white. With the warm weather it is not so bad but once the cold air hits it is a downhill slide. I took to heating rice filled bags to lay over myself during feedings to ensure warmth. 

So, it ends there right? I fixed the thrush, the Raynaud's and all the other supply and pain issues. It can't get any worse from there. 

Wrong. What is life without a little adventure? 

Through an elimination diet  and the guidance of our doctors, we have discovered that my son has multiple protein intolerances.  For me that means that I literally cannot bottle feed him. We saw the doctors again and was prescribed the most expensive formula on the market. One shipment billed our insurance $1998.00. We tried it out and our son still vomited it profusely. We were told he had FPIES but after more research with our elimination diet we determined that he was gluten/dairy/soy/pea/coffee intolerant. The coffee is a side effect of the gluten thanks to similar molecular structure. The pea is a derivative of soy so that creates that problem. 

The reality was is that I am his only way to get nutrition for a long time. Thank goodness I was built to do this! My son was born a healthy eater which will not be a problem since I am an avid gardener but I as his food supply have to follow his diet. So for now I have a strict diet of no processed food whatsoever.  No dairy, no meat, no vegetable oil (soybean derived) no beans, no peanuts (soy family) and no eating out at all. If I cheat on my strict diet, my son pays for it in horrible gas, bloating, bleeding intestines, irritability and weeks of diarrhea. I just can not do that to my sweet child just because I want a cheeseburger. 

Is it worth it? Even if I could formula feed him? 

Absolutely. I have zero reservations about making a sacrifice for my son that will actually lead to a longer life for our whole family. Do I miss ice cream, the option of  free time and nights out with a babysitter feeding my little guy....not as much as I value the gift I am giving him. I know, without a doubt, that I am doing the best possible thing that I can possibly do for my child. I am giving him the gift of a future that is limitless because he has a start that can't be bottled.