I have always been a big advocate of breastfeeding. I joined an internet campaign in support of breastfeeding with a picture of me building a dollhouse with Yanni while nursing Xay with no hands–talk about multi-tasking! 

I nursed all the children well into their second year, and I really enjoyed that time I had with each child alone.  I remember when I fell in love with Xay.  His birth was difficult; we were both exhausted for two days. Then, on the third day, while nursing him, I fell fiercely in love with this baby boy.  I ended up nursing him for two weeks shy of 2 years, and he has been one of my favorite running buddies ever since then.  I have similar stories to tell of falling in love with nursing babies.

When Esteban was born, I tried to nurse him right away.  I had heard that that was a luxury of a home birth; you could nurse immediately.  Ready, set, bond!  Well, Esteban wasn’t interested in nursing right away.  So, I waited for him.

When Yasha was born, I thought she’d want to wait to nurse, too.  I was wrong.  She started rooting around within minutes of birth.  Curtis and I had to maneouver around the short umbilical cord and the baby to get my nightgown off so I could nurse our brand new daughter.

Yasha stayed on the left breast for quite some time.  I couldn’t switch her to the right side because we were still attached, and her cord was short and sensitive.

Then, we had the emergency with her stopping breathing, and rushing to the hospital, etc.

Yasha has not nursed since then.

I was horrified at the hospital when I realized that I couldn’t nurse Yasha any time soon. First, Dr. Pierucci was concerned with acifidity. Apparently, Yasha’s body went into this condition when it was denied oxygen.

It took about 5 days before that condition went away, and Yasha was put on a tube feeling of breast milk. When this started, Yasha was still getting nutrition from the IV.  Soon, the IV was removed, and the breast milk feedings got bigger and bigger.

Around the time of the IV removal, Yasha started throwing up.  I don’t know if that’s when the ‘secretions’ appeared, but that’s when all kinds of talk about secretions, and what caused them started.  She’s been on continuous feeding in an attempt to get a handle on this situation.

Seeing the baby gray and not breathing on our bed was horrifying. I asked God if I could have this baby, but I had a hard time shaking that image. Pumping breast milk was a faith move for me. I had to believe that God would let me have Yasha in order for me to save my milk for her.

I always looked at pumping as creating a milk supply for when Yasha would nurse again.

The way the Dr. talked about acifidity, I got the impression that it would be forever before my baby could even have breast milk.  But it all changed on a dime, and before I knew it, I had to take an HIV test and get all these hospital issued bottles and labels, and do everything the hospital way.

I resented the HIV test, but Christie helped.  She had to do the same thing two years ago when Jessie was born.  It was painless enough, and the next time I came into the nursery, I brought bottles of milk for Yasha.

Usually, breastfeeding reminds me of our old cat, Ntsoke.  She had kittens one December, and she always had a trapped look in her eyes when it was time to feed them. Pretty soon, she started standing up in the middle of a nursing session, and before you knew it, the kittens were competing with her for the food dish.

I know how Ntsoke felt. You are just lying there, (or sitting), feeling the baby tug at your life essence.  You feel ravenous and thirsty, and slightly dizzy when you finally break the suction and do something besides nurse.

Pumping is more like labor.  There’s that dread that rises at the base of your neck.  A pain is coming. . . BAM!  TIME TO PUMP! TIME TO PUMP! TIME TO PUMP!  It’s just as relentless as I. Need. To. Push!

I make sure the shield things are clean, the bottles clean and empty, and I hook myself up to a machine.  I feel so like a cow. Why do we do that to the poor lactating animals?  But I do understand why their schedule is so regular.  Because it gets more uncomfortable when you have to wait.

I must have been engorged for two weeks this time.  At least that’s what it felt like.  I thought I’d just be engorged until I could actually nurse Yasha.  Then, miraculously, the engorgement went down.  I feel like a normal woman in between TIME TO PUMP!  TIME TO PUMP! TIME TO PUMP!–which is every three hours.

I would be so grateful to feel like the cat again.

And, if I’m being honest, I am also very grateful to have milk to pump every three hours. I stepped out in faith, and God brought my milk in on the second day, just as if I had been nursing the baby.  He established my early pumping schedule, before it settled into the three hour pattern.  And, for the first time in my life, I am pumping in a large volume.

I usually get 2 ounces of milk from one, and 1 ounce from the other.  Sometimes I get more, sometimes less.  But the thing is, in the past, I was only able to scrounge up 2 ounces from both breasts combined, on a good day!

Whenever I tried to pump so that someone else could watch the baby, the baby would run through that sad amount of milk and be screaming and miserable until we returned.  The feeling was mutual.  I’d run in the house and grab the baby, usually asleep, exhausted from all the crying, and force a flaming, engorged breast in their direction.

Now, the freezer overflows with bottles.  We took 30 down to the basement freezer, and I take at least 20 to the hospital once a week.  I push concern that I won’t be able to produce enough milk to the back of my mind.  Pumping 7-8 times a day produces a lot of little bottles.

Something tells me that I’ll have a few left over for a date night after Yasha is home and nursing.