The Mommy Cow Experience (Breast Pumping, 2017)

   Recently, on another (non-medical) family blog that I follow, the mom was writing about her breast feeding experience as she was currently weaning her youngest children (twins) and I thought it would be nice to revisit my time in writing as well. I had not talked about it much, back when I was all happening two years ago, since it seems like kind of a private topic and I was focused more on the medical information, but it is a very natural part of life, although one I did not really get to experience.
   For some reason I imagined the breast milk filling up quickly the very moment the umbilical cord was cut, but it was the fourth day before I was actually able to produce enough for Emma to be taken off of the donor milk. The first day, although I was pumping every couple of hours, I could barely make more than a couple drops. The second day I think I got up to 5ml by that evening, which I was so proud of. I started taking gross tasting vegetable Fenugreek pills to help with production. I wasn't sure if they helped or not, but I didn't want to stop taking them in order to find out. I felt like pumping was the only way I was able to help Emma while she was in the NICU with her variety of medical concerns. I didn't enjoy pumping at all. It was painful, especially the first pull when I turned the machine on. I always held my breath and grimaced. I was able to use the hospital pump for the first two weeks and then I was provided a smaller Medela home pump by my insurance company.
   I was very tired the first few weeks and literally felt like all I did was nap and pump, nap and pump, which is probably how I lost nine pounds of baby weight in the first week!  I had alarms set on my phone for every 3-4 hours (because pumping every two hours as the hospital suggested seemed very unrealistic to me). I went back to work three weeks after Emma was born to conserve the rest of my medical leave time, most of which had to be used while I was on bed rest for five weeks before she was born and then the three weeks after her birth. So I only had four weeks left in the fiscal year, and since I was hopeful and incorrectly assumed she wouldn't be in the NICU for too long, I wanted to save those four weeks "for when she comes home".
   Having to pump at work was pretty awkward, even though everyone was super nice about it. When the assistant supervisor (a male) asked if I only needed to pump once a day I laughed and stated, "I wish!" By then I had decided that I would pump every four hours while at work. I was able to use the supervisor's office for 20-30 minutes each day at 9am, 1pm, and 5pm, plus at 4:50am before work -- I work 12 hour shifts -- as well as at 9pm before bed and in the middle of the night around 1am. So for several months I was running on a lack of sleep while also working full time, alternating between 36 and 48 hour weeks, since that is how our schedules work at my job. I carried a small lunch box with me and kept it in the mini fridge at work. It also had one or two ice packs in it to make sure the milk stayed cold.
   Sometimes I would pump a little extra to keep up my milk production at 6:30pm when my shift ended if I was going to the hospital after work since, at the time, around July and August, the NICU lobby employees were not allowed to let anyone in between 6:30 and 7:30pm when the day workers and night workers switched shifts. The hospital was about 20 minutes away, and it seemed pointless for me to just sit in the car for half an hour until the doors opened again. Sometimes a specific male employee would let us in at 7:25 or even 7:20 and that was exciting! Luckily, a few months later, I was very happy that they got rid of that rule, so I would go straight to the hospital after work most days and get to Emma's room by 7pm to see her and hold her for a little bit.
   I was also provided a hand pump which I did have to use a few times, including one day when the power was off for most of the day after a hurricane, and another day when Michael and I went to Busch Gardens, where I brought the mini lunchbox and freezer packs. I also brought a large towel to cover myself while pumping in the front seat that day. I worried about my milk getting spoiled during the hurricane, but Michael had filled a big Styrofoam container with ice, so I buried each two-ounce bottle that I pumped. The hospital re-opened that evening and I took all my milk to the NICU for her.
   I was very lucky to never get mastitis (an inflammation that usually results in a fever), but maybe that is mainly caused from breast feeding and less like to occur when solely pumping? However, one day at work, I did have a clot that caused a lot of soreness. I always brought wash clothes and on my regular breaks (I felt guilty getting regular work breaks as well as more breaks for pumping, but everyone was very generous and understanding about it) I went to the handicap stall and soaked the washcloths with hot water, hoping that would help. It had the opposite affect and only helped me produce more milk, causing the clotted breast to become more sore. The next time I pumped I gritted my teeth and cranked the pump to the maximum suction level (I usually had it at about half volume), which did the trick and my two-ounce bottle filled up within a minute! I was also very lucky to never forget my pumping bag on my way to work with extra bottles and labels. It would have been a hassle to have to hand pump since that takes a lot more time and energy.
   When Emma was three or four months old, I asked the nurse if I could try breast feeding her while I held her and the nurse thought that was a great idea. I don't know why nobody else suggested this when she was much younger, like when she was six days old and we got to really hold her for the first time, or why I hadn't thought of it until then. Everyone was more focused on skin-to-skin, so I usually held her without my shirt on (with my bra and plastic LactiCups so the milk wouldn't leak on to her).
   The first breast feeding attempt was definitely not a private moment as several other nurses, plus Emma's physical therapist (Dana), and my lactation consultant (Nellie) who helped me the first two days after Emma was born, were all in the room, hovering over me. Nellie grabbed me and began trying to squeeze milk into Emma's mouth. I was thrown off, as she didn't even ask permission to touch me first, but I didn't say anything since I know she was just trying to help out.
   Since Emma was older and had never breast fed before, she didn't seem to know what to do and didn't know how to swallow (something that Speech Therapy is still working on with her). She didn't suckle, but it looked like my milk was going in, until we saw it slowly stream out the corners of her mouth. We only tried this on two different occasions before giving up. She was still getting my milk via G-tube, and I held her on my chest often so my milk was still getting the special nutrients since my body knew that Emma was near me.
   I have two pictures of me attempting to breast feed Emma, but they were too revealing to post (I'm glad I have them though), so instead I'll post other pictures from those days. And you can see a few other pictures from around the same time in this post from October 2017.

  Unfortunately, Emma's stools were pretty watery and they began hurting her to the point that she would often pass out from crying so hard. She would cry each time she pooped and at one point she even had a prolapse from her rectum, meaning parts of her insides were seen coming out of her bottom because she was pushing too hard. I tried changing my diet a few times, including being vegan for more than a month, incase she was allergic to dairy. However, one nurse (Sunny) was concerned that me eating too much salad was also hurting her because the fiber caused her to poop more. It turned into a vicious cycle, and the dietician asked that I go back to eating a regular diet, including meat, if I was not a true vegan. By October they tried her on a soy formula called Alimentum and eventually switched her to a more sensitive formula called EleCare. She is currently on EleCareJr (for ages 1+).
   The doctors decided that they would keep Emma on that once the prolapsing stopped and they told me that I didn't need to keep pumping. Although I knew all the benefits of breast milk, in Emma's situation, it was hurting her more than helping. So I was very excited about getting to stop (meaning more sleep for me!!) and immediately started the weaning process by wearing tight sports bras and putting cabbage in them, as recommended. The first few days I waited until my chest hurt and obviously needed to pump, but only pumped for about 10 minutes instead of 20. I did some research and modified it to meet my needs. I felt bad dumping the milk, but did so since Emma wasn't going to use it anyway. The next few days I only pumped in the morning and at night, and the last day (which I remember was Thanksgiving 2017), I only pumped at night. That was my last time. Once in a while I do feel tenderness, even now, as if my body is still trying to make milk, and a friend told me that our bodies keep the ability to breast feed again for the next seven years, even with only one baby!!
   In January 2018, a few months later, while we were at CS Mott Children's Hospital in Michigan for Emma's big surgery, Winnie Palmer Hospital called me asking what I wanted to do with all of my leftover milk that they still had stored in their freezer. I told them they could dump it since Emma was only going to use formula now. The lady I spoke to seemed hesitant, "Are you suuure..? It's a lot of milk." She said I had the option to donate it and all I had to do was get a blood test done, which I was able to do at the hospital in Michigan. (I had told her we were staying at the Ronald McDonald House, so I wasn't able to drive to a random doctors office for it. So I did the blood draw at CS Mott, and she asked for our address at the Ronald McDonald House so she could send me some paperwork for me to sign. The next month I was sent two certificates that I still have hung up on the wall, listing me as an official Mother's Milk Bank of Florida donor and I continued getting emails for several months, letting me know which hospitals around Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville that my milk had been sent to. They said in total I had donated 1,188 ounces of breast milk. That's over nine gallons! So who knows how many gallons I was able to provide for Emma. :)