Feeding Zara - Our Breastfeeding Story

[Bugboy]

With Zara's 2nd birthday fast approaching I decided to sit down and write our story. So here it is:

Feeding Zara - Our Breastfeeding Story

My journey with feeding Zara really begins 2 years before her birth, with the birth of my son Cooper.

Before Cooper was born I just knew I would breastfeed. That was what you did, my boobs would work and I would nourish my child lovingly at my breast and everything would be wonderful. I had intended to join the ABA whilst pregnant but hadn’t got around to it. My exposure to breastfeeding was all from books, none of my close friends had had babies and I just thought it would happen the way it should.
When Cooper was born he went almost immediately to the breast and stayed there for about half an hour. It seemed that all was well, even the ward nurse commented on the fact that he obviously knew what the boob was for.
By day 2 I had the loudest baby on the ward. Of course this wasn’t helped by the fact that most mums were already comping their babies. He was constantly crying. I was admonished for not having brought a dummy with me, for feeding too often and for keeping the other mums and babies awake. It was suggested by the paediatrician that “you could give him some formula, he is a big boy after all”, but I was determined not too.
By the time we went home Cooper was steadily losing weight. He was up all evening crying and hungry. My husband and mum suggested formula but I still resisted. Sleep was becoming a real issue for all of us. Sim suggested calling the ABA but I was worried that as I wasn’t a member they wouldn’t help for some reason, and so I put him off that idea. By this time Cooper wasn’t pooing, he had limited wet/damp nappies and was still slightly yellow. At this point Sim decided to call a CHN who did house calls who had been recommended to him by a colleague at work.
When she arrived I was shown how dehydrated my son was (she pinched his thigh and the skin stayed standing up). My memories are a haze of criticisms of our sleep techniques (Cooper falling asleep at the boob or on one of us), of his weight and of his general health. Before she left Cooper had had his first formula feed in his daddies arms while I cried, and then cried himself to sleep while I cried some more. As the CHN went out the door she gave me some quick words about pumping if I really wanted to keep breastfeeding and a handful of formula sachets to “get you through the weekend”. Within 6 weeks Cooper had fully weaned from the breast to the bottle. At the age of 14wks he had his last ever suckle at the breast as he fell asleep.

When I found out I was pregnant again I was determined that I would feed this baby. I wasn’t worried about the birth my focus was on breastfeeding. I was determined I would not make the same mistakes this time. I set to work researching optimum starts to breastfeeding, ways t increase supply, foods to eat etc.
At a little under 3 months pregnant we moved from Australia to Galway in Ireland. I quickly found myself a midwife (as I was having a homebirth). Throughout our visits we talked about my fears, most of which had to do with after the birth and breastfeeding, which she promised to support me through. I also called my local Le Leche League group and started going to meetings regularly. The women there were so lovely and supportive.
About 2 weeks before Zara was born Sim started to express fears about me breastfeeding. He wanted to go straight to formula feeding to avoid the pain we went through the first time. I wouldn’t even entertain the idea, but knew now I had added pressure to get things right.

Zara was born into my arms in our bedroom and like her brother she went almost immediately to the boob. By day 3 it was apparent that she was also very yellow and very sleepy, just like Cooper. Over the next few weeks I did everything I had read about. We co slept, I rested when she rested, drank to thirst, ate well (including lots of oats), lots of skin to skin both in bed and out, offered the breast whenever she was awake. But despite this my milk never really came in and Zara kept losing weight. She had damp nappies but not wet, she still had not had a non-meconium poo and was waking every night for 4-5hrs crying non-stop.
I was now drinking a special herbal tea and taking an herbal tincture from an herbalist friend. I was also taking fenugreek tablets until I smelled like maple syrup. At two weeks old Zara had started to finally gain some weight but was not even in the vicinity of her birth weight. I then started pumping after each feed to stimulate my supply, I started ‘switch feeding’ on the advice of my Le Leche League leader who was kind enough to visit me at home and teach me how to feed while lying down. I also started another supplement containing Blessed Thistle and more fenugreek among other things.
When Zara was 4 weeks old she then started losing weight again, despite all the feeding, pumping, herbs etc. My midwife arrived in the afternoon to weigh her and I felt my stomach drop as she told me Zara’s weight. I felt as if I had failed. I sat on the lounge, my girl at my breast and sobbed. I went from disbelief, to failure to fury. This was not fair – why didn’t my boobs work!
I had decided back when I was pregnant that there was no way I would bottle feed. I was terrified Zara would wean the same way that Cooper had. My midwife and LLL leader both suggested supplementing using a cup. We also hoped that once she gained some weight and strength she would be able to draw milk from me herself.
So I began learning to feed my newborn formula from a cup. I also made sure that she was still spending a lot of time at the breast. I wasn’t doing any supplementing at night, from 7pm to 7am she was a purely booby girl, in the hope that my milk would be stimulated and that Zara wouldn’t come to rely on the supplements.
I hated feeding her this way. It was a hassle, it was messy and it was difficult, but more than anything it was time away from the breast. Meanwhile I was lucky enough to be getting a tonne of support. My midwife along with the Le Leche League group was offering me lots of encouragement locally and I was also receiving daily messages of support and information from friends back in Australia, some of whom I had never met.
One such friend pointed me towards the ABA’s Mothers Direct website and a device known as a supplemental nursing system or SNS when I expressed my frustration at cup feeding. I ordered one immediately from a company in Dublin and it arrived the following morning. With no-one close by who had any knowledge of the system I had to work out how to use it myself, but I was determined and my training in chemistry, using small tubing for flow of liquids certainly came in handy.
I had also been investigating pharmaceutical galactagogues and approached my local GP about them. Unfortunately they do not prescribe any drugs for the purpose of increasing breast milk supply in Ireland. None of the doctors I spoke to were willing to prescribe for ‘off label’ usage. So that was a dead end. While at my doctors I also had some blood tests done to see if there was anything apparent in my blood work that could be contributing to my supply issues. Unfortunately as these tests were done outside of the 6-week post partum period they weren’t conclusive, but all my levels, including the important prolactin levels, were within the normal ranges.
Eventually Zara and I got the hang of the SNS and settled into a rhythm. Some days were good, some were okay and some were terrible. Now I was breastfeeding, supplemental feeding five times a day and pumping (not to mention the sterilising and making of formula). Whatever I pumped was used as supplement with some formula added to make it up to the required amount. There were days where I had nothing when I pumped. There were also days where looking after two kids and myself had to take precedence over pumping. The really terrible days were the ones where Zara cried and cried as I couldn’t get the SNS to work and we ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, Zara with a bottle in her mouth and me crying with frustration, anger, guilt and regret.
The constant pumping did seem to be helping, I was also taking a new supplement of Goats Rue to help develop breast tissue and I was soon able to reduce the supplements to four a day.
When Zara was 5 months old we began packing to make the move back to Australia. The pumping was put on hold, but I was still taking what seemed like a million different herbs and using the SNS, even on the long haul flights home, which lead to some interesting conversations with aircraft hosts.
At 6 months Zara started solids with gusto. It was at this point that I decided we should try again to get rid of the formula supplements for good. We also stopped using the SNS as I was bloody sick of it, my nipples were hurting whenever I used it and I felt Zara was enough of a booby girl that she wouldn’t wean. As a precaution I only used the lowest flow teats so she still had to work to get the formula.
Getting rid of the supplements was a very gradual process of pumping, adding that to the supplements and then slowly dropping the amounts per feed and eventually whole feeds. It was during this time that a friend also offered her EBM (expressed breast milk), which meant Zara was having even less formula.
At the age of 10 months Zara became formula and supplement free. There were sometimes, especially at the nighttime feed, where I questioned what I was doing. This mostly occurred when she was wingy and not sleeping due to teething, but overall I was glad to get us to the point of booby milk only.

Of course the story doesn’t end there. As I write this Zara is a couple of weeks shy of turning 2 years old and like any mother toddler feeding relationship we have our ups and downs. Zara still feeds frequently, both day and night and has just begun telling me how “boobies make it better”.
As to why I have problems with my supply, I still have no definitive answers. I have done a lot of research and through talking to various people who know about breastfeeding one of the theories that makes sense to me has to do with my thyroid condition. Basically at around the age of 12 years old I lost three quarters of my thyroid to Hashimoto’s disease. This was undiagnosed until I was 14 years old. My thyroid basically wasn’t functioning for 2 years and we were still balancing the medication for a year after the diagnosis. All this occurred during the time when my breasts should have been developing, so the theory is that this may have effected the development of my milk producing breast tissue. One of the herbal supplements I started taking when Zara was 4 months old was Goats Rue which is supposed to help with breast tissue development and it did seem to help, lending further credence to that theory. Although I was doing so many different things it is a little hard to determine what had the bigger effect.
The truth is I probably won’t know the real ‘cause of the problems until I have another child and begin another breastfeeding journey, and even then I may not know. I truly hope that next time round things will be easier thanks to all the work Zara and I put in this time.
If that’s not the case and the same challenges occur I take heart in the fact that if I have done it once I can do it again. If nothing else it should be easier because I have learnt so much, I know I have the strength I require and the support I need to succeed.

ETA - We now know I have what are called tubular or hypoplastic breasts - this condition was likely caused by the late diagnosis of a thyroid condition in my teens. Knowing the why of my story has helped me let go of the guilt I feel for both Zara and Cooper and their early years. But it also makes me angry at the lack of support and general knowledge about breast feeding that there is.

[ikis]

Oh wow, thankyou so much for sharing that! What a strong, determined mother you are!
Do you know that they can use ultrasound on your breasts to see how much breast tissue is there, and how much milk your breasts can make? That could be an option when/if you have another bub, to find out if it is that.

[TOR]

Dear Bugboy,

Aren't you just magnificent??? Biggest of hugs. And how gorgeous that Zara now verbalizes her appreciation! Go gently, Emma XXX

[As an aside, and not to detract from your story, I have to say I'm really surprised the SNS was not suggested earlier by LLL and/or your midwife. They've been around long enough and known as the best option by both LLL and midwives in situations similar to yours, and were certainly available in Eire ten years and more ago! Whether it would have made any difference to you, as it sounds like there's other stuff going on, is unlikely, but the thought it wasn't suggested is very surprising to me].

[Trixie]

Hi Jo, wow does your story sound familiar! Almost exactly how it happened with me and my son although luckily I was able to have prescribed galactogues (sp) and Fenugreek helped me a lot. In fact I have only recently stopped taking it

I remember the weight loss, the dry nappies, the pumping, the syringe and cup feeding, the crying and the guilt. I remember not leaving the house for 3 weeks because I would feed, top up with EBM and formula, settle to sleep then pump only to have the cycle start all over again - night and day.

I so hear you! Thank you for sharing your experience - I hope that writing your story will help you process your thoughts on your breastfeeding relationship with Zara today

[Waratah]

Wow what a difficult but rewarding journey.Thank you for sharing and for reminding me not to take my own bountiful supply forgranted.

Catherine

[sage]

Oh Jo! You fantastic woman.

[Bugboy]

ikis - no I did not know that, this is why I love this place, so much knowledge to share

Emma - my midwife, although very supportive, really wasn't that clued in to bfeeding, the back up midwife (who was actually there for Zara's birth) was much more knowledgeable but as she was based in Dublin I didn't get to talk to her much. As for LLL, I honestly think I was one of the first people the group in my area had who wanted to feed but was having real major supply issues. Eire has the lowest breast feeding rates in europe and most of the mums who I met outside of LLL had never even attempted to breast feed, their bubs went straight to formula

anenzeder - you highlight something that I really want to get across. I am not special, there are plenty of other woman who persevere with breastfeeding issues and go on to have lengthy and fulfilling breastfeeding relationships. I just did what I had to and want to share our story so others know they can do it too.

[The Morrigan]

You are such a star I know what you mean about not being special but I like to think there's a little room in there for acknowledging your determination in a world that hates breastfeeding.

[TOR]

As for LLL, I honestly think I was one of the first people the group in my area had who wanted to feed but was having real major supply issues. Eire has the lowest breast feeding rates in europe and most of the mums who I met outside of LLL had never even attempted to breast feed, their bubs went straight to formula

Yep. I would have people come up to me constantly and comment they could tell I wasn't an Irish woman because I was breastfeeding!

On the other hand, I used to sing in the pub (in that incidental band in the corner kind of way Eire is so good at) with a toddler up my top, and no one ever batted an eyelid!

[Bugboy]

Thanks TM

On the other hand, I used to sing in the pub (in that incidental band in the corner kind of way Eire is so good at) with a toddler up my top, and no one ever batted an eyelid!

love that imagery