WOW, I am so glad and thankful I found this thread. This is my story.
I had my baby girl early at 36 weeks she weighed 6 lbs exactly, I had it in my head that I was not going to be one of those mothers that FF, well- if I had only known what was in store for me and my baby.
My baby had pretty bad jaundice but we were released from the hospital, we went home and baby was latching one perfectly fine, I had no idea my supply was so low. I went to change her diaper one night and I noticed some pink and orange spots, this had happened because she was dehydrated. I called the hospital they told me it was normal and to keep going with BF. The next day I saw a nurse baby had lost quite a bit of weight and her jaundice was getting worse so we went back to the hospital to get photo therapy on our way to the hospital baby was having blue spells, this was awful, I had a huge freak out in the car and as soon as I saw the Dr I mentioned it, he didn't say much of it but that baby was healthy and everything was OK. I kept "breastfeeding" and pumping. That night one of the nurses was present while I was changing babies diaper and she saw the pink that I had noticed a couple of nights prior. She mentioned supplementing and told me this was happening because baby was a bit dehydrated as soon as the bottle was given to her she drank the whole thing. I was so amazed. I had been pumping the whole time as well but I would only get about 20mls at a time mean while my baby guzzled down a whole 50 ml bottle and some. That night she asked me if I wanted to see a lactating consultant and I said yes. The whole night I breastfed, supplemented with expressed milk then supplemented with F and pumped it would take about 1 hr and 20 mins to do it all. The next day I was feeling terrible I had a fever , chills, pain in my whole body and I was bleeding a lot (I had my baby vaginally). I was lying in bed still supplementing, Bf, pumping and FF when the lactation consultant walked in the room as soon as she took one look at me said "honey you have an infection, you need to go down to emerg" so I did. My mom and hubby were with me so hubby stayed with baby and mom took me down in a wheel chair because I was too weak to even stand. We got down to triage and I fainted. I was admitted right away I had test after test done. After hours of being in the emerg we found out I had a pretty bad uterine infection there was a piece of placenta left behind. So right away I was put on IV antibiotics I was to stay in the hospital for 5 days, the Drs wanted to make sure I didnt need a DandC so I was under observation plus my hemoglobin levels were getting lower and lower by the minute. (FYI when a piece of something is left behind your body stops producing milk because it thinks it's in labor).
Meanwhile, baby was being released as she only needed 12 hrs of photo therapy. I was devastated. Hubby went home with baby and I stayed behind.We had the option of keeping her with me on another unit but It was flu season and we didn't want to expose baby to infection. I stayed behind pupming away every two hours even at night, hubby would come to the hospital for a quick visit and to pick up the expressed milk. Mind you, the expressed milk was only about 30mls per pump. My body was in shock I was devastated, tired and very depressed.I was barely producing any milk. So my final results came back and I didn't need a DandC after all, thank God! So I was released to go home. I kept doing what I was doing for the rest of the time at home which was about 2 days.
A couple of days later Baby had another blue spell, this time I was freaked out it just so happened I had schedualed a meeting with a nurse that evening so I mentioned it to her. Right away she called the children's and baby was admitted yet again. This time we were freaking out they said it could be a bladder infection (because of the dehydration) or it could be as bad as meningitis! at this point I thought I was going to go crazy we hadn't even spent a whole week at home. Baby was admitted for another 5 days
I was so sad at this point nothing could bring me back up and as for my milk supply almost non existent. I was taking Motilian, fenugreek, Mother's nursing tea you name it! I tried it all. I think my body just got to the point where it said STOP! Thankfully baby was fine they did find some bacteria in her urine which could have meant many things but of course I was blaming myself. We came home and I kept BF, supplementing, FF, and pumping to the point where I was barely spending any time with baby because I was so obsessed with being able to produce more that 25mls, 20mls 15 mls ata time. I even tried some gross chinese remedy teas, nothing helped. I was on the brink of a nervous break down and not even being able to produce half of what my daughter needed was making it worse. Did I mention that I even got a hospital grade pump?! that didnt even do it. It got to the point where my daughter was so hungry she would scream and scratch my chest because she wasn't getting anything from my breasts it was heart wrenching I felt like such a failure. My mom helped me realize that what I was doing was doing more harm than good. She went out and got me 15 boxes of formula and said "here, enjoy your time with your daughter and stop stressing"
So after about 3 weeks of complete stress I started to FF. I never felt engorged and I never produced more than 35 mls of milk at a time. But i still felt so guilty for having FF my daughter. Everytime my friends talked about BF I get so jealous. I hated the feeling. I hated myself!
A couple of days ago I read an article on about FF and the writer mentioned how we are almost made to believe that we are feeding our kids poison, well its not! it's helping them grow and stay happy. Everytime I think of the times she was scratching my chest or screaming because I wasn't producing enough I am truly thankful for Formula, I don't know what would of happened of my little girl if it wasn't available to her.
So ladies, let's just be thankful its available to our little ones. Don't let anyone put you down for it and keep cuddling and loving your babies, you are doing exactly what you are suppose to be doing.
Thank you for reading my story and I hope you start to feel better about FF, I am so happy there is something positive to say about it, it took me a while to accept it and I am not going to lie sometimes I wish I could BF but for whatever reason it's just not meant for me this time around. I just have to embrace it and move on and so do you. Take care and keep those heads up high
does anyone know if she moved somewhere else?
