Doing it my way....achieving an intervention free breast feeding relationship

We had a very difficult time developing a strong breast feeding relationship with Nakita and this time I was so determined to avoid any unnecessary interventions, I was educated, I had her Paediatrician on our side and I had put everything in place to make this work.

With Anastasia in the SCN, I was half expecting her to see her with a NGT (Nasal Gastric Tube) in her nose or an IV in her arm, but a few hours after delivery she was brought into my room, on oxygen, but her only other attachment was the monitor taped to her foot. She was tube, wire and line free. I was thrilled... step one ~ ok we have made it through the first few hours... We then brought her out of the isolette to see how she would go with some skin to skin, my gown was opened up and she was placed on my chest and within minutes her saturations began to stabilise, she was where she was supposed to be and she was improving without the O2, I had heard of it happening many times, but to experience myself just brought tears to my eyes.... it just shows how amazing a mothers touch can be.....

We then attempted out first breastfeed...... it was just like my first breastfeed with Nakita , she just licked and played, I soaked it all up as we had to wait days before we were able to try with Nakita and here I was only a few hours later. A MW then bought in a bottle of formula, it had 20ml of a high calorie formula in it, she said that if she didn't had a good suck then she would be giving he the formula :o It was at this moment I quietly begged Anastasia to suck, I tickled her under the chin, I started doing all the things I used to do to get Nakita to feed. I pleaded her to suck, we had come so far I wasn't going to give up. The MW left the room and minutes later she started... she latched on, and started to suck, and she was strong, I was beside myself, tears pouring down my face, the MW came back in to check on us and was shocked to see her sucking, I was beaming, she sucked for long enough and she passed the "test" the formula was put away for the time being.

This was then repeated for the next few feeds, but with each feed Anastasia grew stronger, she sucked longer and my Colustrum was flowing, I couldn't believe it with Nakita to get any Colustrum was like trying to get blood out of a stone, but this time and after a CS and not a VB the Colustrum was there and I was sustaining my baby girl with it.

Over the next few days we began to battle the scales, she had lost almost 10% of her body weight "the limit" and the MW's were good at reminding me... but on the morning of day 3 her Paediatrician came in to check on her and he said they should just throw away the scales, they cause too many mothers too much stress, and he even said that the 10% 'limit' really shouldn't matter either, you should just look at the baby and look at the mother, if the baby looks good and the mother is happy and comfortable then why intervene, sometimes we just need to give babies and mothers more time, without all of the pressure that comes with a set of scales.

My confidence was given a huge boost, our Paed wasn't like all the rest, he wasn't setting limits or guidelines, I had my ammunition against any MW that said otherwise. On the evening of day 3 my milk started to come in, I had started Motilium that morning as we trying to avoid going through the supply issues I had with Nakita rather than leaving it for a week or so. The following two mornings she had gains of 30 and 40grams, woooo hoooo!!! I was doing it and Anastasia was doing it, we were forming a great team, she had a powerful suck, her feeds were lasting 20-30minutes per side, and she was settling well in between feeds about every 3 hours!!!! This was such a big difference to her sister, by the time we were getting breast feed established her feeds were lasting 1 1/2 hours, followed by settling and then I would have to express and byt the time I was finished we would be starting the next feed, this cycle went 24/7. Yet here I was almost twiddling my thumbs!

I had become very engorged and this caused issues, Anastasia was struggling to attach, we had gone from a great attachment to fissures of both nipples, they were bleeding a lot and very painful, but I knew it would take time to heal and Anastasia to grow and improve her attachment again. So I used a combination of EBM and air drying to help them repair, I asked for a nipple shield in attempt to reduce further damage and I would express for 5 minutes prior to each feed to make the attachment easier. All of my experience from last time was flooding back to me, I was setting the rules and doing it my way, I was confident that I knew what I was doing and I wasn't going to be swayed by each different MW with their own opinions.

She then started to lose weight again, the MW's then started to threaten Formula again, but I stood my ground, the losses were not huge and she was still above the "10%" mark, she was having plenty of wet and dirty nappies, so I knew she was getting enough, it was just going to take some time. Her Paed came in again and reassured me that he thought the same, Anastasia had developed a wicked tan (aka jaundice), but we agreed that it wasn't that bad, and discussed that her older sister was jaundiced for three months, and it was breastfed jaundice, Anastasia was still bright and alert, and doing all the right things, so once again we avoided intervention and decided to just give her more time.

It was then decided that we were both up for discharge, my recovery had been slow and challenging, but once we got the meds sorted out and some great support and ideas from my online community I was improving each day. There was nothing that the hospital was going to be able to do for Anastasia that I was able to do myself, her Paed was confident that I had done it all before so was happy for her to be discharged with me!!!!

OMG!!!!!! It has happened!!!!! We didn't make it to full term but we did get our take home baby!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I was going to be walking out of this hospital with my baby in my arms, I was not going to be leaving her behind in the care of others, oh the joy and the elation. We did it!!!!

After everything that we went through so much just to keep her safely tucked up inside, we all made sacrifices to make it just one further day and then the extra week, we battled through so many complications, went through the lowest of lows and celebrated the highest of highs. Yet after all of it we have come out the other side and every single moment has been worth it because we got our TAKE HOME BABY!!!!!!!