My toughest year

I am joining Lotus from Sarcastic Mom in her breastfeeding carnival. I have read a lot of posts about women who loved it, women who didn't, women who persisted and women who decided formula was best.

My story is different. I can tell you that I breastfeed all three of my girls. My oldest and my youngest were breastfed exclusively for well over a year without any problems. I loved doing it.

But my story with Caroline was different. She was diagnosed in utero with a rare chromosome disorder. And we didn't expect she would survive. She did.

I won't go into all her details, as that story is so SO long, but I will tell you a bit about breastfeeding her.

She was wisked away to NICU as soon as she was born. 'she was full term but so tiny, only 4 pounds 2 ounces.


We thought she would need surgery as soon as she was born so I couldn't feed her. And I decided to start pumping that day. It was hard. I was so incredibly exhausted physically and especially mentally. But I couldn't bear the thought of her not being breastfed. After about a day, we were able to try feeding her. I rarely got a chance to try to get her to latch on so I kept pumping, every few hours, and giving the hospital my milk for her feedings.

When she was released from the hospital, they wanted her to get more calories than typical breastmilk or formula so we added a supplement to my milk and fed her by bottle. She came home, tiny as can be, at 2 weeks old.


For the next couple months we struggled so much with her. She had the most severe case of reflux. She would literally throw up almost every single feeding. We spent our days consumed with feeding her tiny amounts and trying to prevent her from throwing it up.

And I kept on pumping. I got the double electric pump from Medela which really helped, but the schedule was still incredibly hard. Especially since we also had a healthy 20 month old toddler running around as well. Initially, I would set my alarm and pump in the middle of the night. Or I would pump after Caroline's nighttime feeding. But it became too much and I gave up my nightly pumping. And it didn't have any affect on my milk supply.

In fact my milk supply seemed to be way more than Caroline could ever handle. I pumped bags and bags of the stuff and even started storing in my mom's and my MIL's freezer. We just didn't have the room.

Over time, pumping just started becoming part of the routine and became less of a hassle. I set up a pumping station at my computer and I would surf the web while pumping. I think that helped immensely. When I relaxed, and was less stressed, and had my mind off my pumping the milk bottles would sometimes overflow before I realized it.

At about 3 months old, Caroline was diagnosed with failure to thrive. She had still not even hit the 6 pound mark. We took her into the doctor for a check-up and ended up being hospitalized right then and there. She was throwing up so much of her feedings that she could barely gain weight. At the time, we didn't really realize HOW bad she was, but looking back on pictures, we see it. She was so thin and her hair was even receding.


And at that time, we began tube feedings. She was getting to the point where she was too weak to even eat much so we inserted a tube in her nose that went straight into her tummy and fed her with a syringe.

Somewhere in the middle of this, I did try to again get Caroline to latch on. I met with a lactation consultant. I tried all her tricks. I really REALLY wanted to breastfeed her. But I finally decided I couldn't keep trying. I couldn't handle one more thing added to my already overwhelmingly stressful life. It was a hard thing to come to terms with, but I felt much better once I did.

Caroline had more health issues over the next few months but things finally stabilized at about 6 months old when she had a permanent feeding tube implanted and her hiatal hernia was fixed which improved the reflux and vomiting.

I continued to pump for Caroline for over a year. As I said, it became routine. Over time, I began to cut out the number of times I pumped a day, one by one, to make life a little easier. I still continued to produce more milk than she ever needed.

There were times when pumping was a pain in the a#$. Like when we were going places for the day and I was forced to pump in the car. Boy, I HATED that.

Or when we were visiting family and I would have excuse myself and find a corner to pump in. I HATED that too.

But looking back, I swear to God that my breastmilk is the only reason Caroline survived her first year. I may be wrong, but she spent her first months barely keeping anything down. She was becoming a skeleton. And I swear that that tiny bit of that perfect first food is what kept her going.

After a year, we started supplementing with infant formula. And after 18 months we weaned her onto a toddler formula.

She has been doing fairly well over her 4 1/2 years. She definitely has her ups and downs, but she has come a long way from that tiny, skinny baby that barely hung on during her first 6 months.