First, I want to thank everyone for all the wonderful, sweet, and kind comments. Thank you so!
We are home, safe and sound. Our first stop, en route from hospital to home, was Costco, to fill the prescriptions. It’s Labor Day weekend, and the last thing I wanted was to be home with no pain meds! Because I’m a wuss.
Seriously, though, you know this attempted breastfeeding business is tough stuff if narcotics are necessary in order to bolster oneself enough to overcome the pain to try yet again. And gosh, I’ve been trying. The thing is, some will say that these giant babies still have teensy tiny tummies and can survive just fine on the meager quantities of colostrum produced until the milk comes in, but so far, not my boys. No, they whither away at an alarming rate, plummeting past that x% normal baby weight drop, right on by, so the doctors recommend the alternate therapies begin.
I was all ready for this, though, and I started pumping in the hospital, just to see what was there, and to try and encourage things. The lactation specialists were so good, too, and I was feeling so confident. They noted that my milk was working its way down, and we had a plan to keep on pumping after feedings, use a supplemental tube to add the pumped milk to what the baby is trying to pull from the breast, and occasionally supplement with formula if necessary. And some formula was necessary, at that point, due to the massive drop in weight. The lactation specialist deemed that although LB doesn’t suck properly when there is no flow (and hence chomps the nipples mercilessly, just like his brother before him, resulting in bleeding, cracked, swollen, horrible protrusions that hurt like holy hell), once flow is present, he’ll switch his pattern to the normal suck. Which is GOOD! He can latch! They estimated that I’d only have to use the tube for one or two days at most, because by then the milk would be flowing, and off we’d go.
So last night the boobs got all swollen, huge, and hard. (I can only imagine what visitors Google might send my way, with that combination of words.) Practically engorged, or what I remembered engorgement to be. I was a bit surprised that this would happen, since I’m pumping regularly, every 2-3 hours, after each attempted feeding, and that’s supposed to help bypass the whole engorgement phase. I assumed that the milk would come. I knew that LB wasn’t getting much, because I couldn’t hear swallows, and he never switched to the sucking pattern, but continued chomping. I expected to see more, once I pumped. But no.
It has become too excruciating, even for me, and I actually have quite a high pain threshold, even though I called myself a wuss at the beginning of this post. So I decided to take a break from nipple chomping, and just pump exclusively for a while to give things a chance to heal. Meanwhile, the plan was to use the tube and my finger, to feed the expressed milk. This is all under the assumption that there will be milk.
I’ve been pumping every two hours, and each time, what do I get? A measly 10 mLs. And that’s from BOTH breasts. I brought out my diary from BB, and I was getting 30 mLs at this point, and I was distraught then, for that piddly amount, and my poor starving (giant of a) child. (Who, we all know, is far far from starving, and is indeed a very robust boy!)
And then I noticed the whites of LB’s eyes turning yellow. Jaundice. Dear Lord, these things freak me out to the point where I want to curse these useless humongous bags of flesh. All show and no go. And really, hardly a worthwhile show at that. I’ve been feeding LB every drop of expressed milk, and giving him as much formula as I can coax him to take. Two days ago, the lactation consultant estimated he should be getting 45-55mL per feed, and feeding every 3 hours, increasing each day by another 10-15mL per feed. So today he should be getting 70-90mL per feed. I’m producing only about 120mL a DAY.
I’ve been trying all day to get him to eat, and have only managed to get him to take 40mL at any given feeding with the supplement tube, and at that, it takes a good hour and much coaxing.
So tonight I say, screw the nipple confusion, my boy must feed. If I’m not making milk, I’m not making milk. God knows why, or why not. I’ll keep pumping like this and see what happens. Maybe there will be more milk. Nature and science both say there should be. We shall see. In the mean time, bring on the formula, my boy must eat. I got him to take 67 mLs, from a bottle, and it made me SO happy. And afterwards, he stayed awake for a couple of hours, and I hope it’s not my imagination, but the whites of his eyes look more white. I am relieved.
My beautiful, precious boy.
