A Comedy of Errors, Minus the Laughs

This week I had the rare opportunity to go to my monthly OB appointment sans baby (thanks, Mom!). A typical visit involves a constant vigil to entertain my incredibly active almost-toddler. Instead, I sat back on the couch in the waiting room and grabbed Pregnancy magazine, getting hooked on a two page ad for bumGenius cloth diapers, and its 10% off coupon. Not being one to surreptitiously shove office magazines into my bag, I held up the magazine to Kate, my OB’s aging hippie receptionist, and before I got my question out, she said, “Yes, take it, they’re free.”

When I got home, and without actually meaning to do so, I found myself reading the article, Dealing with Breastfeeding Bullies, written by Nanny Stella of Nanny 911. I guess I have a bit of a breastfeeding fire lit under my ass lately, most recently due to a gaggle of radical nursing Nazis on Facebook who were admonishing moms who formula feed. Naturally, it got me thinking about my own nursing experience with my youngest child, Kai. (Due to several factors, some of which are admittedly selfish, I never even attempted to nurse my oldest child, Trevor. Regrettably. That being said, I developed a devotion to nursing the next child.)

The plan was to nurse Kai upwards of a year, something totally doable considering that I am a stay at home mom. My husband and I invested in a Medela InStyle double pump and a ton of nursing necessities that quickly added up to a few bucks. Money well spent, right? Not really.

I began acclimating Kai to nursing when he was just an hour or so old. That was on a Thursday. By Saturday, my nipples were in pretty rough shape, my milk was coming in with a vengeance, and Kai began to cluster feed, a term with which I was unfamiliar and that translates to “Welcome to Hell!” But, hey, Kai made up for the cluster feed by sleeping all morning on Sunday. In fact, he had slept for such a long stretch that I suspected the nurses of slipping him a bottle of formula. I was told that his last feeding was with me, early Sunday morning. Paranoia unfounded.

Before being discharged that day, I attended a nursing class, for good measure, to make sure that I was doing all that I could to ensure a successful experience for both of us. All was smooth until 11:30 PM Monday evening, when Kai began to cluster feed again. It lasted until about, oh, 4’something AM Tuesday morning! (Now you know what cluster feeding is…)

The cluster feed came to an abrupt halt as my husband—beside himself with exhaustion and frustration from listening to my escalating sobs and Kai’s hungry screams—did the unthinkable. He gave Kai a bottle of formula. On one hand, Kai was able to satisfy his hunger (after all, he was a full 10 pounds at birth!) and we were all able to fall asleep shortly thereafter. On the other hand, Kai immediately began to refuse my nipples, which I was hoping wouldn’t happen.

Over the next day or two, I arduously worked on both getting Kai to latch on to me again, while supplementing with both formula and pumped breast milk, and getting my nipples back into shape with some APNO (all purpose nipple ointment—a pricey cure-all made by an apothecary pharmacy) cream. Just when things were looking brighter, I developed mastitis in my right breast, leaving me feverish and hopeless in bed, ready to give up on nursing, something that I naively thought was going to be easy and fluid. I was started on antibiotics (I could continue nursing on them) and immediately began to increase the frequency with which I pumped to increase my milk production and unblock the duct, all the while trying to get Kai to re-latch. I also began reaching out to other nursing mothers and got in touch my local La Leche League, desperate to continue nursing.

In the course of reaching out, a couple of women enlightened me about nipple shields and I felt like we would be back on track in no time! The universe saw differently, though. Kai had stringy, bloody, mucous-y poop in several of his diapers, alarming both his father and me. We went to Kai’s pediatrician the following day, armed with a plastic bag full of soiled diapers. “Oh, he’s got a milk protein allergy,” his doctor assured us. “Sh*t,” I thought. “Approximately 50% of all babies with a cow’s milk protein allergy are also allergic to soy,” she added. Double sh*t. We were sent on our way with some samples of Nutramigen formula and some stool sample slides.

Without a second thought, I decided to give up on nursing. I was pissed and defeated. Being that I’m a vegetarian who gets protein from some soy sources (but not in the soy milk/cheese/yogurt variety, more like Boca stuff) and calcium from dairy (and almonds), I couldn't imagine how I’d get my protein and calcium without taking supplements and starving myself. My reluctance lasted only a day however, as I began to rethink my selfishness and refocus on what was best for Kai. “I can do this,” I told myself.

So, a diet modification and some nipple shields were on the menu (no pun, in either case). But, no sooner was I on track again, pumping and dumping for a few days to clear my body of that which Kai is allergic to, that I noticed a tiny part of my c-section scar was open and oozing pus. The infection was confirmed and I was tested for MRSA because it had been making rounds in the maternity ward at my hospital for more than 6 months at that point. I was put on Bactrim, a very potent antiobiotic, and told that I could only pump and dump for the next two weeks. Several days later, my doctor said that my incision site tested positive for MRSA.

Ummm, WTF? Seriously. I was beside myself and feeling utterly hopeless about breastfeeding. How could something that is so natural and beautiful and efficient be such a nightmare? To boot, when we brought Kai’s stool samples back to his doctor, she confirmed that he wasn’t responding well to the formula and switched him to Neocate, a 50 dollar per can hypo-allergenic, amino acid based formula. The prescription was written for 10 cans a month and if our insurance company didn’t cover the cost, we would have been forced into a life of crime. Well, not really, but you know…

I gave up. With a big, grand “Eff It,” too. I felt crushed. I felt like less of a woman. And I felt tired. Yes, I could have pumped and dumped for those two weeks and continued with dietary changes, but I chose not to because I needed a break, coming off two solid weeks of infections, healing, sleep deprivation, crying, doctor visits, and hopelessness.

Lactivists, as nursing Nazis are affectionately called, would say that I should have and could have hung in there, but I made a conscious decision to stop. I intuitively felt that it was more important to decompress and relax with my new baby, and enjoy him in ways that I just wasn’t during our nursing experience.

This next time around, the plan is to dust my ass off and get back on the horse. Giddyup.