Although this post my seem a bit personal, I hope that someone somewhere reads this and feels better about their situation. Sometimes breastfeeding isn't for everyone...
Breastfeeding my child was the plan from the very beginning. I read books, went to classes and talked to other mothers. I was educated and ready! Besides the health benefits, I was looking forward to bonding with my child through breastfeeding.
After Dean was born, I learned the hard way the breastfeeding is not for everyone.
The first day Dean was born, I breastfed my sweet boy. He had troubles latching onto one side so we worked off of only one. The hospital sent in 2 different lactation specialists to try to help him latch. With no luck, the next option was to at least pump on the non-latch side (to keep me from going lopsided and to supplement Dean's hunger).
The second day in the hospital I started having horrible headaches. I'd never had headaches this intense so it worried me. After telling my nurse, who then talked to my doctor, the anesthesiologist came in for a consultation. Long story short, I had a spinal headache. During the epidural, the tube that holds all my spinal fluid was punctured resulting in the loss of all that precious spinal fluid.
With my headaches so bad, I could only breastfeed for 5 minutes at a time. I had to lay flat on my back (that was the only position that helped the headaches). To fix the headaches, they gave me a blood patch. It is basically like an epidural but instead of an injection of meds, they took a bunch of blood from my arm and inserted into my back-OUCH!
Well, the blood patch lasted for a day then the headaches came back. My options were to have the blood patch again OR wait it out. I decided to wait it out.
The first week at home was awful. I needed to breastfeed my baby but, I couldn't sit up for extended periods of time.
While the headaches were a stumbling block the worst part was the nipple. My sweet baby was such a good sucker and he only had one boob to feed off of. Soon, I was cracked, bleeding and I cried everytime I fed him.
With the new stress of being a mom, headaches and feeding off of one boob. He wasn't getting enough to eat. Something had to change.
Week 2 I started to pump. That worked for a while until I wasn't producing enough milk. I tried everything... skin to skin, pumping more often, herbs and a disgusting tea called Mother's Milk. Soon I had to introduce formula into his diet.
Having to formula feed my baby made me feel like an awful mother. I wasn't providing for my son the way I wanted to.
Now, we are only formula feeding because I dried up. I'm still trying to convince myself that breastfeeding isn't for everyone. I have a lot of support in my life helping me with this detour. Calin has been the biggest support. Dean my not be breastfeeding but, he is a healthy growing baby boy.
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