Breastfeeding Ruby – Update

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It’s been almost two weeks since I talked about breastfeeding!

Heck, it’s been almost a week since I’ve posted at all.  Whoops.

Since I last posted, I had a heartbreak.  I stopped nursing all together.  I started focusing on my pumping output, and making sure Ruby was getting enough from a bottle.  We stopped practicing all of our bottle habits – paced, upright and delayed feeding – and had just started to try to let feeding be stress free.  I haven’t been upset or frustrated, and neither has Ruby.

My pumping volumes have increased and decreased, but I’m now getting to where I have 6-7 extra ounces a day to start putting in the freezer.  I’m starting to get a freezer stash again!  I’m nearly up to 50 ounces already, and that’s more than I’ve had since early in Ruby’s life where I ended up tossing 70 ounces of ‘yeast’ milk. 

All of this being said, I nursed Ruby today.  All day today.  (Well, okay… not all day.  But every feeding.)  She would try to grab at my chest, and I softly grabbed her hands and told her sweetly, “No pinching.  Nice touches.  No pinching, Ruby.”  I pulled her hand gently away every time she pinched, and told her again, “No pinching.  Touch nice, baby.”  She would look me in the eyes, little brows furrowed, and I could tell she was frustrated… but she would stop.  She began grabbing on to my shirt, or played with my lips and teeth.  She pulled at my hair… she stopped pinching.

I did this for every feeding.  Every time, I had to talk to her, I had to tell her no pinching.  Every time, it frustrated her.  Sometimes she got so upset we ended the session early.  Sometimes she relaxed and nursed.  Either way, it made me feel like we’ve maybe made some progress. 

Dang, it felt good to nurse all day.  It really felt good.

I think I’m gonna nurse all day tomorrow too.  Then, a week or so from now, I’ll take stock and see how we’re doing.

Fingers crossed we’ll be doing even better than now.

 

Pretty Girls.

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I had a play date with my friend Hayley… our sweet girls were born just 8 days apart.

We hadn’t seen eachother in years, but it was amazing to feel like it had only been days.  And the girls had so much fun together.  It’s really incredible to see how alike two babies the same age can be and yet how different at the same time.

Prepare for the cuteness!

I LOVE how you can see both of them smiling.  McKinleigh on the left, Ruby on the right.

Their heads are the exact same shape!  Ruby on the left, McKinleigh on the right.

They kept trying to hold hands.

McKinleigh has the best “OMG HAPPY!!!!” face I’ve ever seen!

I love Ruby’s tongue in this.  They were both smiling at Brock!  Also , they have the same color eyes.

I couldn’t think of a great caption for this.  Maybe “You stink!”?I love these faces.  McKinleigh on the left, Ruby on the right. (Just in case you didn’t have them figured out yet.)

Aaaaaand…. a gratuitous shot of Ruby with a pink bow on her head.  Because… why not?

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Smiles.

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Trying to keep up with getting pictures off of my camera.  That is all.

Bed head, crummy face, bug bites and all… I just love this guy.

Baby Led Weaning!  BANANA FACE!!

The post-bath silly smiles. She is stunning in blue.

I love the softness of this.  I think it accurately conveys his sweet nature.  I want to kiss him!

World’s Best Hug.  That is happiness right there.

She is this happy!  All the time!  We are so lucky.

Little man.  Little man pants.  Suddenly so grown up.  Potty training at 2.5 years old.

Ruby is 6 months old, bouncing her way to crawling.  Ronan is 2 years and 6 months.

Wah Wah Wah.

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Wow, I bet ya’ll are all tired of hearing about Ruby and breastfeeding!  I’m tired of thinking about it, and talking about it, and worrying about it.  Seriously.

So, I wanted to clarify some things.  First, and I heard this one a lot – Ruby doesn’t hate breastfeeding.  She’s not miserable.  She loves it.  She adores clawing at my chest, and pulling back on the nipple, and biting down with her gums.  She pulls at my shirt to get to my boobs.  She dives towards them like she’s starving.  She plays with them, and smiles at them, and cuddles them in her sleep.  She doesn’t hate nursing, and I’m not forcing her to nurse.  She just has NO IDEA how to nurse without hurting me.  Her behavior changes when I don’t allow her to nurse for an extended period of time, and I feel like she misses it.  It breaks my heart a little bit.  I’m not making her miserable when we keep trying… only me.

Second – I don’t feel guilty.  How could I possibly feel guilty?  I have fought and fought for this little girl.  I have questioned everything, everyone.  I have TRIED everything.  I have done everything possible to make this work; when it doesn’t, it wont be for lack of trying.  When I give up nursing and start pumping for good, it will be because I have exhausted every option, tried every trick, called on every resource possible to me and NOT because I backed out and didn’t try hard enough.  I have no reason to feel guilt, so I don’t.

I am raising a beautiful, happy, healthy, smart, funny, wiggly little girl.  She makes me smile every single day.  She loves her brother and adores her daddy.  She is growing like a weed, meeting and exceeding all of her milestones… she just wont nurse.  That doesn’t make me a failure, or make her a bad baby.  It doesn’t mean we wont survive this.

But it also doesn’t mean I wont be sad about the loss of the sweet nursing relationship I had dreamed of as I grew her inside of me.  And it doesn’t mean I wont try again with my next child.  I have learned.  A lot.   I wont make the same mistakes again.  Maybe someone out there will learn from my mistakes, and be more successful than we have been.  Maybe good will come of this.

I haven’t given up yet.  Not quite yet.  I have a plan, I have a few more cards up my sleeve… and if they don’t work, it’s okay.  We will be okay.  I keep trying because when this ends, which it will, I will be able to look back knowing fully and completely that there was nothing else I could do – and be proud of all that I did.

I AM proud.  No matter what, I am proud of Ruby Kate, and I am proud of myself.  We are doing pretty good.

And we will be okay.

I Learned.

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Just for fun, I’m participating in a link up about how much we’ve learned since we took our cameras to manual mode.

I have learned:

  • I suddenly pay a lot of attention to the light.
  • Sometimes I’d rather adjust the aperture than the shutter speed – especially when chasing!
  • I set my auto focus point to the center of the frame, and then focus on eyes… then I keep my button half pressed and frame my shot – that way, no matter how I frame my shot, the eyes are always in focus.
  • Don’t pass up good lighting!
  • Sometimes a high ISO is better than a blurry shot.
  • I keep my camera on multi-shot. I rarely use it… but sometimes, something so wonderful happens that 3-4 of the same shot turns out the one perfect one I may have missed as I stopped to check the replay of the shots.
I took this picture just over a year ago, when I purchased my camera. It was the second day I had it, and I wanted to start out in manual mode. I played with the shutter speed, aperture and ISO for hours before trying it out on Ronan. When I captured this, I couldn’t BELIEVE how good a picture it was. I just kept on improving from there.

And this is one of the pictures I took recently of Ruby. I can probably say it’s the best picture I’ve taken yet. I naturally start to frame pictures in my mind, and can imagine how the finished product might look. It’s a process!

…and I hope to keep on learning!

Click it Up a Notch

Defeated Today.

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I want to write blogs that make people happy.  I want people to cheer for us, and be proud of us, and be so thankful they stopped by to read.  I want to inspire moms, and empower women, make dads laugh.  I want to make people smile.

So when something doesn’t go the way I want it to, or when I’m down and frustrated and upset, I don’t want to write.  Instead, I just do nothing.  I don’t blog, and I don’t tweet and I turn my back on my friends.  I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, or to feel pity for me.  I don’t want it, so I do nothing.

Right now, I’m writing instead of doing nothing.

I worked all weekend.  This means that I pumped and Ruby was bottle-fed.  Since Saturday morning, I haven’t had the chance to nurse her, and she drank more milk than I was able to pump.  When I left Saturday evening, there were 25 ounces of milk in the fridge.  When I got home, I brought 13 ounces with me.  I didn’t even come close to replacing what she had drank, and it scares the shit out of me.  I hate myself for ever taking the steps to decrease my oversupply, because I had never, ever dealt with this problem beforehand.  It’s stressful.  And it sucks.

When I woke today, Ruby was acting hungry.  I offered her the breast, and she wouldn’t even put it in her mouth.  She played like it was a neat toy.  LIke she had forgotten the purpose of a nipple.  Like she was willing to sit quietly and patiently until I got her a bottle, and then she would eat.  I didn’t force her.  I put her in the bumbo and gave her a hunk of banana. (BLW!) I put her down for a nap.  And when she woke, I offered again.

No thanks, mama.

I prepared a bottle, and I fed it to her.  And I cried.

I cried because I want it to work so badly, and it’s not working.  I cried because I somehow failed her, at some stage of this, and allowed it to get to the point that I can’t recover.  I cried because I want to seek help so badly, and the funds aren’t there.  I cried because it shouldn’t cost us our grocery money and our car payment to seek help, to teach my daughter to eat properly.  I cried because I felt defeated today.

I don’t want to feel heartbroken every time things don’t go right.  I don’t want to be done, but my heart hurts.  I’m tired of crying.

From now on, I’m taking it one day at a time.  We will do what we can, when we can.

Because no matter what happens, she will always be my baby girl.

One Step Forward.

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I had a skype consult with an amazing IBCLC.  (Look ma, I gave her a chance!)  She has worked with Dr. Jack Newman, and has been a supporter of nursing women – and women in general – for years.  I didn’t ask for her permission to use her name on my blog… but suffice to say, she is wonderful.

We had a great conversation about nipple pain, and behavior, and positioning.  One of the questions she’d asked me is if Ruby has her chin to her chest while nursing; does her nose touch my breast?

Not nursing at the moment, I wasn’t entirely sure, but I’d guessed that she was correct.  She asked me to imagine going out for a run, and getting home to have a big drink of water.  She said to try to imagine trying to drink a huge glass of water as quickly as I could… with my chin tucked into my chest.  Go ahead and try it!  Try swallowing quickly a few times.  It’s uncomfortable, and awkward and difficult.  She then pointed out to me that during a nursing session with Ruby, that is probably exactly how she feels.

So!  So she gave me some pointers on how to get Ruby to extend her neck.  Besides nursing her in bed, today was the first time I had a chance to try it.  Press between her shoulder blades, hold her lower body tightly to me.  I managed a position where she was laying, looking up at me, body extended and and comfortable.  Ruby was so much more relaxed.  She played with my lips and nose.  She smiled at me.  And she stayed in the deepest latch she has in… months.  Yes, months.

I’m not saying we’re fixed, and I’m not saying that everything was perfect.  But hell… it’s a step in the right direction.

(Sorry for the quality of the pictures – they were on Brock’s old phone, and the lens was dirty!)

Notice: No claws!  No pinching!  No HANDS!  (And naked bum baby!)

Nursing Ruby – Update

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Wow.

I mean, really.  Wow.

Did I hope that my blog would get out there, and I would find help?  Yeah, you bet I did.

Did I have any idea it would recieve the attention, support, love, caring, kindness, suggestions, advice, and amazing offers for assistance that it did?  I had no clue.

Absolutely no clue at all.

This is the power of social media.  The power of the internet.  The absolute power of mothers who are all about other mothers.

Thank you.  Thank every single one of you.  Thank you to all the people who read our plight and didn’t have any advice to offer, but wished us well anyways.  Thank you to everyone who passed it on, and showed it to friends, and asked for help on our behalf.  I cannot thank you enough.  Thank you to every momma who had been there before, and took the time to tell me about it.  Thank you so, so much.

Since this post was written, I have read, processed and replied to over 300 comments.  There is more information here than one person can hope to absorb.  There is so much help out there.  There are so many things to try.  Since I wrote, Ruby and I have started ‘suck training’, encouraging her to suck on my finger and allow it to reach her soft palate.  She has seen the chiropractor and had her jaw adjusted.  We’ve nursed at night, all night long, and felt calmness.  Today, we had a craniosacral therapy session where I was informed that not only did she have a very high palate (adjusted!) but she also carries tightness and frustration through her whole spine.  The therapist helped her to release the energy (in the form of heat) and by the time she was done, Ruby felt like she had a fever – but she was as happy as can be.  It was incredible to witness.

I have only nursed Ruby twice since we started making changes, and I feel small differences.  No quick fixes, no miracle cures.  But we started on this journey a long time ago, and I don’t expect us to reach the end in one day.  We are learning to do what she needs – together.  I want to thank each and every one of you for taking this journey with us.