My Nursing Journey with Baby #3

I wrote this post almost six months ago now…when we were still in the thick of nursing. Before the crawling, the walking, and the end of what would be my final chance at breastfeeding a baby. Wells will be one in a week (how???), and today I’m pulling out the very last bag of frozen breastmilk. Since he quit nursing at 8 months, and I quit pumping at 9 months, I’ve been slowly making my way through that stash. This last month, I’ve been giving him one or two bags on the weekend and that’s it. And now this last one. It’s a bit like a sucker punch, if I’m honest. It’s done. Forever.

So I’m grateful I wrote these words - this story - six months ago, so I can always remember how much of a journey, and an accomplishment, it was. Maybe someday I’ll write down exactly how this chapter ended…

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I’m nearing six and half months of nursing Wells, and it all feels like a dream. I never made it past the four month mark with the other two, and really didn’t expect to make it very far with this one considering all the challenges we’ve faced.

Early on, it was just so painful. I would medicate myself with Tylenol all day long, use gel pads, silver cups, lanolin, coconut oil…anything I could find on a google search to try and get through feedings. I would end up keeping the feeding short because I just couldn’t do it, which meant he wanted to nurse more often. I’d cry – sometimes in frustration, sometimes in pain. I sobbed to my pediatrician, paid for visits with a lactation consultant, and tried every position I could to get the perfect latch. At the end, it was determined that he just had a really high palate, which was causing the pain. Since he was gaining weight and happy, I could just drive on and hope it got better, or I could quit. I couldn’t quit. I cried so much thinking that I couldn’t quit, but that I was suffering so much.

After a few months, it did get better. I’d have whole days where I just forgot about it and focused my attentions on him not napping or something. Then I went back to work, and he went to daycare and got sick. Like really sick.

The first few times he didn’t want to nurse, I just let it go and kept trying. But then I’d go five or six hours without removing any milk. So after a few days of that plus the stress of dealing with a tiny, sick baby, my supply dropped drastically.

There was also the time I had to work the weekend, and Joe thought it would be a good idea to feed Wells in the bed lying down, like how we nurse. When I got home that night, he screamed. Would not nurse. I just knew he was done. That he now knew he could have a bottle at home too…not just daycare. That he “found out” a bottle was better somehow. That our bond and special time together wasn’t that important. I lashed out angrily and forced the baby on to Joe. Fine, you feed him then. And pumped convinced the Army…and my husband…had ruined everything. Spoiler Alert: Eventually, he came back around.

We battled sickness and stuffy noses for weeks and weeks, but this time around I would pump if he tried to skip a session. I was super diligent about maintaining my supply, so that he wouldn’t be disappointed when he did decide to nurse. Then one day I noticed it was taking a really long time for my letdown to happen when we were nursing. Like, from 15-20 seconds to MINUTES. I had no idea what was going on…I thought maybe I had my pump set too high, so the baby’s stimulation wasn’t enough. Maybe my supply was low from pumping during the day. Maybe something was terribly wrong, like broken irreparably. Wells screamed, desperate for milk (it was bedtime). So I pumped to initiate a letdown and then nursed him. Then it happened again, in the middle of the night. And again, and again. And each time I would get more anxious, my nerves further preventing that precious letdown from happening. I was devastated…was something broken?!? I met up with my old friend, Google, and learned that around four months postpartum, your letdown can begin to slow. Fuck. Really?!? Everything I read said baby will get used to it, but I just wasn’t sure.

Well, as it turns out, most of the time, we have no issue. If it’s at night, he’s fine. If it’s early in the day, everything’s good. The only time we still have an issue is that last session before he goes to bed…especially on days where he’s been at daycare and is exhausted and hungry and just wants to go to bed. So, I just pump to initiate letdown for that feeding every day. No need to stress about it. It’s not that complicated and everyone is happy. But ever since that slowdown, I haven’t been able to feed him anywhere but lying down in bed.

I can’t seem to hold him in a way that he’s comfortable, I’m comfortable and we’re not sweaty or nervous or in a rush or something. He’s a big kid who’s not quite sitting up yet, so our options are limited. So I just don’t. On the few occasions we’ve left the house and he’s needed to nurse, I just bring my pump and a bottle. No big deal. I’d like to be able to tackle that again once he’s sitting and can support himself, but we’ll see.

The moral of all this is to just keep trucking. Just keep moving forward and don’t focus too much on the Ifs, and the maybes, and what about next week or month or even tomorrow. Just get through it – one session at a time, however you can. Easier said than done, I know. Every single day is a blessing, you know? Even now, more than six months in, I’m still standing on the edge of fear that it will all end one day and I’ll be crushed. Not because I think formula is somehow less than…but because it’s this special moment with just the two of us. Skin to skin, quietly taking each other in. It’s me crawling into bed at night, stealthily sliding in next to his warm little body, usually fast asleep from a long day of not napping at daycare. It’s the milk spilling out of his mouth when he stops nursing to smile at me. Knowing he’s my last baby makes it that much harder. This is it, you know? I’ll never get another chance at this. And I’m so ridiculously grateful we’ve managed to make it this far.