Exhausted But Happy

My god what an exhausting few days! I was let home on the early dismissal program for new moms, which is where the hospital lets you go home on the basis of having the travelling midwives come to your house to check up on you and bub for the first few days of life.

The doctors did a quick check of my baby girl on the 9th, announced she was fit and healthy and (literally) shoved me out the door. I should mention that our hospital is relatively small, and the maternity ward only has four birthing suites which were all full and there were moms-to-be coming in all day and waiting for rooms so they were pushing people out as quickly as possible to make room for the new people. So, off I shoved.

It was not all peaches and cream. Infact, it wasn't peaches and cream while I was AT the hospital. Kira kept me up through the whole night on the 8th, crying and screaming bloody murder. She wasn't gassy, wasn't constipated and I kept thinking she could not possibly be hungry because I had fed her only moments before. I would attempt to feed her again and she'd latch onto my boob with no problem, suck for ages, drop off and then repeat the process all over again.

Finally around 3am one of the midwives came in to attempt to calm her down, thinking she was gassy, and gave her a nice hot bath. She then asked if I'd slept with her, which at that point I hadn't, so after her bath, she was put down next to me, and we began breastfeeding again. I fell asleep, she fell asleep, but periodically through the night she would continue to drink. When we got up the next morning, the process started all over again.

I cannot tell you how frustrated I was. After all of that feeding, she STILL seemed to be ravenous. I was scared that they wouldn't let her come home with me because I couldn't settle or calm her down. Turns out because of the whole lack of beds thing, they didn't really give a shit, didn't weigh her and I was allowed to be let go.

That night, the same thing happened again. I spent the majority of the day feeding her when she was crying, following the advice of the midwives who told me to "demand feed" and let her drop off when she was done. They then told me to make sure I got plenty of rest inbetween feedings. Therein lay the problem. Shortly after her feed, and I'd put her down, she'd wake up screaming again, starving. I did not have a clue what to do except feed her consistently, nevermind that my nipples were rapidly becoming extremely sore and tender, and starting to bleed a little bit.

Friday was the first day the midwife came out to see us. She took down loads of information, weighed Kira and promptly told me that my daughter had lost 10% of her bodyweight. She then told me this was normal, and that babies will regain that in their first two weeks; I shouldn't worry. So, even though I WAS worried, I told her that yes, okay, I would not worry. She then proceeded to tell me that Kira should have at LEAST six soaking wet diapers per day, and at least one bowel movement per day. She had not been having that since leaving the hospital, and on the day OF leaving the hospital, she had yet to have a bowel movement.

Saturday morning came, and I was at my wits end. I felt like I was completely out of control, completely out of my league and unable to care for my baby properly, in that I could not get her to stop screaming for food, no matter how often I fed her.

Six am that morning and I was sitting out in the loungeroom, nursing her again, and trying not to fall asleep. An hour later, Mamala got out of bed and asked how everything was going - I started telling her about all my concerns and wondered if maybe we should get a breast pump to actually SEE how much milk I was producing. She agreed that would be a good idea, and when D got up and joined the conversation, he just asked if we should go out and buy her some formula because it was during this conversation that I came to the conclusion that I did not have enough milk, or that it was highly lacking in quality. I had literally been starving my child, all on the advice of the midwives and all of this being "normal" for a demand-fed baby.

Around eight am, she started pushing my boobs away because there was nothing in them, and there hadn't been anything in them all morning, so Mamala raced down to the pharmacy, picked up some formula and a pump, raced home and we finally fed my baby girl. Instantly, as soon as she was done with her 2oz bottle, she was asleep and as limp as a wet noodle, when previously she had been all knotted up and a screaming mess. I almost burst into tears when the realization hit that I had truly been starving my baby.

But, she slept SO well. Four hours straight, and awake again for another feed. I attempted the boob again and she sucked for a little bit, gaining nothing after an hour on both, and afterward we gave her yet another bottle. She dropped into sleep again, and again for another four hours.

The new midwife came out that day, a woman none of us liked upon seeing her for the first time, and basically told me that if Kira didn't start putting on weight (even after I had explained the entire story, minus the formula) that she'd have to send me off to the womens health clinic to find out the problem. Like that threat wasn't scary enough, she then had the nerve to tell me that all of those feedings, all of those upset nights were normal for babies, and oh by the way, is she urinating and passing bowel motions?

Well, yes bitch, she is NOW thankyouverymuch.

Now we've been alternating the bottle and the breast, and I'm still expressing to see how much milk I actually have. They told me it takes roughly 15mins on each side for bubs to be full and for the breast to be drained, however they had no idea how MUCH milk bub was actually getting. After a half an hour of me expressing from both sides, she had 20mls in the bottle. Hardly enough for a decent feed.

The weekend was fairly routine with the formula and some partial breastmilk (whatever she could get from me which was very little), Kira sleeping like an angel and doing everything else that she was supposed to do. Well minus the bowel movement every day because apparently the formula can interfere with that for the first couple of days since the protein in it isn't as easy for bubs to digest.

Today when the midwife came, the first thing we did was weigh little Kira and we were so stoked to see she'd gained 90grams!! The midwife was happy, I was elated and then I proceeded to tell her about our weekend problems and what we did to correct it. She wasn't displeased, but then she didn't seem terribly pleased either. Not that I particularly gave a shit; I was NOT going to continue starving our daughter just because they all said it was "normal". She's going to call me in the morning and see how everything's going, and then we'll most likely be finishing up with her and heading up home.

I cannot wait to get back to my house and get all settled in. Plus I'll be able to upload more photos from there as well!

Meanwhile, if anyone has ANY tips for breastfeeding or milk production, please drop me a gMail. Thank you!