All about the milk!!

This post is dedicated to breastfeeding!! Oh how I love breastfeeding. . . . NOT!

I don't mean to be sarcastic but I am going to say I do have a love/hate relationship with breastfeeding. It was not what I thought and it always surprises me.

Before I ever got pregnant I knew I was going to breastfeed. The benefits were just far superior to formula. I have nothing against formula because I was given formula and I am pretty phenomenal! :)

After I got pregnant I wanted to learn as much as I could. So I watched my sister in-law she is my breastfeeding superwoman. Kayleen and her girls made it look easy! So I got lots of advice from her and John and I even took a breastfeeding class! I went into breastfeeding with lots of confidence. I was like, "I so got this."

But then I fell, and I fell far and hard. Carl was born and the poor guy couldn't latch on. Let's just say I have a lot going on. But have no fear the wonderful ladies of the St. Vincent's Lactation team came to the rescue. They introduced to us a nipple shield!! Oh, how I fell in love with the nipple shield.

Before we left the hospital though the doctors made sure to freak us out about his jaundice. They wanted me to supplement with formula because his jaundice was so bad. Talk about sending us home in a panic. When we went to our lactation appointment the midwife continued to freak us out. So needless to say that night we made a bottle of formula. There it was. The bottle just taunting me. I was crying and I felt miserable. After a mini-freakout I got myself together and I said, "No!" I will keep nursing him and everything will be okay. We followed up with a pediatrician and sure enough she said he would be fine!! I am so glad I did not give him the formula.

So we survived jaundice and we continued on our happy way. I went through my engorgement period and I survived. But I still noticed we were on the nipple shield. Carl was comfortable and I was like fine. But one day I tried to latch him on with out it and it worked!!!

There we were breastfeeding perfectly. Everything was great! We survived the first six weeks and everything was perfect.

But this is no fairytale. Just this past week it seemed like my milk supply was getting low. Wednesday morning I pumped out a 5 oz. bottle in ten minutes. Thursday afternoon I couldn't pump anything. Carl was eating every hour or less, and it just seemed like he wasn't getting enough. And to be honest my boobs felt empty. I was in panic mode!!! I could not believe I was reaching the end. I again started to cry. I thought everything was finally going to be perfect and this happened. Here it was, the end.

Thanks to facebook I got some amazing encouragement. Saturday morning Jennifer came over and brought me some Mother's Milk Tea (which is super yummy). She talked with me for a bit and I felt super better. So for the weekend I went on a nursing marathon (every two hours), I have been drinking the tea and eating oatmeal.

Needless to say everything is back to normal. Talked to lactation; he is getting enough and my ducts are fine. So who knows what happened. Maybe I was getting to comfortable and my body was like, "Let's freak her out."

So here I am breastfeeding comfortably again, but I am not naive anymore. I know there will be some difficulties too come. Growth spurts, teething, teeth, and whatever else.

Now we just need to get comfortable breastfeeding in public (definitely not as easy as I thought it would be).

The love/hate relationship will continue. Love the benefits and the bonding, hate the complications and the unknown.

So for all you breastfeeding mommas out there you are amazing and I want you to know this. And for all the future mommas breastfeeding is the best but I will not lie to you; it's not easy and can be down right awful at times. But hang in there!!!