This Boy is Hungry!

Jackson is now three weeks old and I'm finally feeling back to my old self.  He is a good baby and sleeps four hours at night, which is really great.  But getting to this point was quite a challenge.  While we were in the hospital, I was trying my hardest to breastfeed Jackson, but had no idea how difficult it would be. Add to it recovering from major surgery and raging hormones, and I was a mess.  The lactation specialist would come by right about the time when I thought I had it figured out and he was nursing good, but then when things melted down in the evening and night time, there wasn't anybody around to help.  On the Wednesday after he was born, he was circumcised, which made him very sleepy and wouldn't nurse at all. We had several visitor that afternoon and I was feeling pretty good, but things took a drastic downturn that night around 1 a.m.  They brought Jackson to our room and he was having a complete meltdown, which also made him not want to even think about latching on.  This, in turn, made mommy have a meltdown, and poor Daddy was trying to calm both of us down.  A nurse finally stepped in and figured out that Jackson was really hungry and syringe fed him some formula so that we could get a few hours of rest before the next feeding.

The next morning (Thursday), the lactation specialist came to help us, and she did her best, and he seemed to do well while she was there, but really Jackson was just putting on a show.  Because as soon as that lady left, he would not latch and just get so mad.  This morning, we were also expected to go home, so once J left to go back to the morning to be evaluated by the on-call physician, Brent and I got our stuff together to go home.  Imagine our surprise when we learned that J needed to spend a day at the special "tanning bed" because he was jaundiced.  I really believe this is because he was not getting enough to eat.  I was very upset, and even though I knew it was common, I was still upset.  Can you say HORMONES? Luckily, our insurance would pay for us one more night, so we unpacked the bags and got re-settled.  The jaundice treatment caused a new issue with trying to feed though, because when they would bring him to us, we only had one hour with him.  So instead of trying to fight with him to get him to feed, I would pump 30 minutes before he came to the room, and then would get him to drink through the nipple shield using a syringe and tiny feeding tube.  This allowed the milk to be right there, which he liked because he really did not want to work for his food.  Who does!  I joked and said that my son really wanted a straw with his milk.

Fast forward to the following Wednesday.  Mom and I loaded Jackson up in the car and went to the pediatrician's office.  Shockingly, he was down to 6 lbs, 9 oz.  My baby had lost a whole pound - about 13% of his birth weight, which is past the 10 % that the doctors allow.  I was upset and beating myself up, but my wonderful doctor told me not to.  It's common problem, but we had to nix the nursing to get weight back.  So for the next day, we had to syringe feed him an ounce every two hours, and then every other feeding, I would pump to build up my milk.  That was rough let me tell you, but I was so glad my mom was here to help.  Brent and I couldn't have done it ourselves.  (He was back at work by this point).  On Thursday, she and I drove to Little Rock to see another lactation specialist, and she was helpful and encouraging.  We tried several more times, but at the end of the day, Jackson was just not interested in latching on and feeding. That night we broke out the bottles and decided this was just how it was going to be, and everybody was fine going forward.

I must say that the breastfeeding cult out there gives a major guilt-trip to all mothers who choose not to nurse.  I wanted to, but couldn't, and I still don't appreciate the guilt.  What the materials don't tell you is that lots of babies are bottle-fed and are JUST FINE.  Then add on top of that everybody's opinion on breastfeeding, and what you have is information overload on a new mother who is already tired and stressed.  My advice to new mom's is to follow your instinct - it'll be right most of the time.

Anyway, I know this is boring, but I wanted to document this for my own personal reasons.  I hope to download some pictures this week.  It's taken me about 4 days to write this, but I want to get better about writing things down.

I'm really tired now and it's about time for another feeding!  Like I said, this boy is hungry!