Meg and Elias

Things had been a little rocky right before Elias arrived. I'd been in and out of the hospital and on bedrest because of impending pre-eclampsia the loss of vision it was causing. Ultimately we went from a doctor's appointment at 39 weeks to the hospital, do not pass go, do not collect $200, hopefully your brain won't explode and your liver won't shut down on your way.

Except for the medieval torture that is an emergency induction, everything went fine and 26! hours later Elias was born and he was on the small side. And he was on the yellow side. And we were on the Over-the-moon-happy (and thank-god-I-don't-have-to-lie-on-my-left-side-anymore) side.

All that time I had spent trying to get pregnant and lying on my left side while pregnant was spent visiting Kellymom and reading The Breastfeeding Companion and visiting message boards and blogs and I felt like I knew what the deal was. I didn't actually KNOW anyone who had nursed a baby, but most of the things I have learned in life I learned from books. I went in thinking it would be REALLY HARD. I knew I would give it my best and if things went badly I'd give it a month and if they went well I'd give it a few years. I was going to be pretty hard core about not supplementing with formula because I knew how important it was to establish a supply in the beginning.

It was 6 pm on Friday when Eli was born. Lactation consultant gone for the weekend. We would be gone before she returned. I was at the mercy of the nurses. They were all over-joyed that I was nursing but less then helpful. As soon as he was born (after we were both pronounced healthy again) we were left alone in the delivery room and I began to nurse him. He seemed to know what he was supposed to do, but couldn't latch too well. And later downstairs with nurses help he also... couldn't latch. And one nurse suggested side lying, and one nurse suggested football, and another suggested cross-cradle. The pediatrician said he was small, we needed to keep him warm so he didn't expend calories keeping himself warm. He needed to eat because he was jaundiced. He was sleepy because he was jaundiced and all the warmth kept him asleep. It was all we could do to keep the child awake long enough to nurse for 3 minutes. Me managing placement, and my husband tickling his feet and Eli... Eli mostly slept or screamed. And occasionally he'd eat.

In the middle of the night, he screamed and screamed and we gave him a little frmula (half an ounce here and there) dripped from our fingers into his little open bird mouth, and I cried and wondered why I was torturing him thusly.

Eventually we went home and my milk came in (and boy did it pour out) and Eli gained weight and nursing hurt, but it was okay, no blood... we were doing well. I was slathering myself with lanolin every time he nursed. In those first weeks, my breasts and nipples and aeriolae were swollen and shiny and red and they ITCHED. And my nipples blanched and hurt all the time. I thought I had thrush. I emailed the lactation consultant. She said maybe you are ALLERGIC TO LANOLIN. I put that in caps because I didn't know that was possible. It's hypoallergenic, right, read the package. Hopefully if you stopped reading before and are skimming you'll see that. I stopped using the lanolin and in one day, I was CURED.

So then came our stumbling blocks. That beautiful skinny boy had serious, serious reflux. Starting when he was just a few weeks old, he would nurse for about 1 minute before he would start screaming hysterically. He would scream and scream for several minutes calm down, and I would nurse him some more and then he would scream and scream. This was how he ate. Constantly screaming. Of all the things that happened in the next year, having the one thing that most mothers can use to calm their crying child actually MAKE my child cry was hard to handle. He was also severely colicky and cried a lot (read "all day and night") for the first 4 months. We couldn't nurse discretely in public because he screamed and unlatched every couple of minutes, leaving me exposed. We finally got him medicine and he started nursing like a champ. Cutting his formerly 1.5 hour long feeding/screaming fests down to 15 minutes. Life was good.

Then that summer when he was about 7 months old, I got mastitis. First one side, then the next. Then twice on the same side. 8 times. My supply suffered, but we were starting solids (VERY slowly) and it was fine. It sucked and it hurt and boy I threw up a lot, but it was fine.

Then I got meningitis (not related to the mastitis). I went to the hospital and during this experience discovered how little doctors know about what medicines can be given to nursing mothers. I got a lumbar puncture without any medicine to make it more comfortable for me because the doctors didn't know that it was okay to give it to me and just assumed it wasn't safe. I got better from the meningitis but then had a spinal fluid leak. To fix the fluid leak, I underwent a procedure that I didn't need to have because I was told that they 8 day course of medicine that was the alternative would require that I stop nursing. I cried all the way home. I wasn't ready to stop nursing my 9 month old son. It was too soon, I wasn't prepared and MAN did my head hurt too badly to think about it. That doctor was also wrong.

Later I looked all these medicines up on a website called Lactmed and discovered that they are generally safe. My husband is a physician and in the odd instance he has a patient who is nursing he looks up medicines on lactmed and tries to find nursing compatible alternatives before telling his patient falsely that they have to stop nursing.

Eventually, I developed a rare sequela of meningitis and the wide spread pain disorder that it caused required a medicine that was TRULY not compatible with nursing. I was concerned for how an abrupt stoppage of nursing would go with my emotionally sensitive son. But I needed to start the medicine right away or I wasn't going to be able to be any one's mommy anymore. He was fifteen months old, and he asked to nurse twice one day and once the next. He didn't cry about it, was easily distracted from his goal and things ended peacefully.

I mostly wish that women who need medical interventions and are nursing, get proper care and that their doctors take that nursing relationship seriously, rather than assume you will either happily give up the right treatment or happily stop nursing. I know more than anyone how busy doctors are but asking them to take a minute to evaluate their course of treatment for the special needs of a nursing mother is worth it and not too much to ask.