My Bf'ing experience part I

Throughout my entire pregnancy I continuously worried about whether or not I would be able to breastfeed my baby once he was born.  While I was pregnant, I never experienced many of the symptoms most woman talked about in terms of changes "up top".  I never leaked and only felt sore at the very beginning of my pregnancy.  I barely went up one cup size and have stayed that size since Liam was born.  Because of the lack of changes, I figured that I would have trouble nursing my baby.  While I was expecting, I heard horror stories about breastfeeding, but also had people tell me that it would be the easiest thing I would ever do.  My experience has fallen somewhere in between.

Before I had a child, I was always very curious about breastfeeding basics and other people's stories.  I have been wanting to do a post on the topic for awhile now, but knew that I would need to put alot of time into it.  This will be in two parts, because I have many things to say about the subject (so stay tuned!)  I am hoping that it will be interesting to others who are curious about breastfeeding.  I am also doing this for myself, so that I can look back and remember how much I loved it and sometimes hated it at the same time....

Spending an entire week in the hospital with Liam was a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of breastfeeding help.  I had the lactation consultant available whenever I needed her and nurses who would grab my boob and latch Liam back on when he would come off.  In the beginning, I would try and do this myself, but failed miserably.  After watching the professionals do this multiple times, I finally learned.  I think it took the lactation consultant telling me to "give it to baby like a boobie sandwhich".  And that's exactly what needed to be done.  I found out it's all about the positioning and technique.  I was also informed that baby should have "fishy" lips for a proper latch.  Oh, the interesting analogies with breastfeeding.

To get my milk to come in quicker, the nurses told me to pump after my delivery (since Liam didn't eat until the next morning following his birth, due to being in the NICU).  At first, pumping seemed like a useless chore.  I was exhausted and would have rather been nursing my baby.  Instead, I had to wake myself in the middle of the night just to be "hooked" up to a machine.  Nothing came out at first, only a bit of condensation.  After pumping a few times, I started to notice that the condensation was becoming thicker and that this was actually my milk making an appearance for the first time.   It was exciting that my body knew what to do.  The first time I pumped just less than .5 ounces, I was thrilled.  Though, it seemed to little to bottle up and save.  I was told by a nurse that I should save EVERY drop and to this day, I live by that.  That stuff is liquid gold, m'am!

I did have a small problem after using the hospital pump for the first time.  I don't know why or how it happened, but the pump took a lot of my skin right OFF.  Yes, righhtt THERE.  I received much sympathy from the hospital staff and even the lactation consultant cringed when she saw what had happened.  Nobody knew why this had happened.  Truthfully, it only bothered me when Liam would first latch on.  After a few days I had healed up.

My milk came in on probably the 3rd or 4th day after delivery.  If it wasn't for Liam being in the NICU, we would have been home with him already.  I'm not sure how I would have handled the nursing situation without the help of the professionals.  I still had no clue what I was doing at this point.  I really would never, ever want to experience the stress of having a baby in the NICU again, but it was a great opportunity for us to gain more guidance with nursing.

We spent hours in the NICU with Liam and most of that time, was feeding time.  I remember one night, sitting in the NICU nursing him for an hour and a half!  I was exhausted as I sat in the wooden rocking chair, with my feet propped on a small stool, but I still found myself dozing off and jerking to stay awake for fear I'd drop my baby.  He would eat, then fall asleep, then eat again.  Even now, nursing is Liam's ultimate sleep aid.

I think nursing have been more difficult for us at first because Liam was so sick.  I go into further detail about this in Liam's Birth Story, if you haven't read it all ready.  To sum it up, we didn't have any latching issues (Liam was a pro at latching right on), but Liam did have problems falling asleep while he was eating since he was so tired and weak.  Also, it's kind of difficult nursing a baby who is connected by multiple wires with limited range to noisy machines.  Burping him without a wire being pulled off his body and a machine starting to beep, was a miracle.  Though it was very frustrating at times and completely exhausting with the nurses calling me to come and feed him every 2-3 hours, I was willing to do anything I could to help my son feel better.

Want to know more about my breastfeeding experiences?  More tomorrow!!!

What was your first breastfeeding experience like?  Was it how you thought it would be?