a novel that is prolly tmi for most of you-proceed at your own risk :)

Nursing has been quite the roller coaster these past months.  It started out kinda rough-other than the typical experience of both mom and baby having no idea how to do this- jake couldn't latch on.  I guess I was too small etc and he was too weak.  So we used a nipple shield and were able to nurse really well using that for the first month.  By the month mark I was so tired of being yoked to this stupid thing, I decided to throw it away and throw jake in the deep end figuring he'd figure it out.  He did.  After the first day he got the hang of nursing without it and he did great-I was so proud of us.  By his two month appointment he had gained a lot of weight.  The dr said, he would call jake a chubby baby based on his weight gain percentage but he was growing taller too so the new weight was redistributing and he still looked skinny.  He had gone from 7 lbs at his 2 week appointment to 11.8 at his 2 month check up.  He went from the very bottom of his weight bracket to average.  Again I was so proud.

Over the next few months he started eating every 3 hours instead of every 2 which worked well for the first lil while, and believe me-I was happy to have a lil more time in between feedings.  We went to Jake's 4 month appointment after our Utah trip and I was shocked at his weight. 11 lbs 7 oz?! He actually was lighter than he was at his two month appointment??? Normally this is when you expect kids to have growth spurts- want nothing but to eat all day long for a few days.  Well, Jake never did that.  I remember thinking that was kinda odd.

The dr had me meet with a lactation consultant-she was really great and really nice/supportive.  She was surprised that I was only feeding jake on one side still (apparently most moms, even if they start out feeding just on the one side, eventually feed on both sides after the first month or two.) That coupled with the less frequent feedings ravaged my milk supply.  She had this cool scale so we weighed jake before the feeding and after the feeding.  He had only gained 2.5 oz of weight.  Instantly i switched to feeding him on both sides more frequently- first every 2.5 hrs and then every 2 when that didn't seem enough.  She recommended I use herbal supplements to help increase my supply-it tasted awful but I tried it.  I would pump before I went to bed (which used to be right after we got jake to bed, but I stayed up a few hours later just to get to pump one more time), and after the first meal of the day to make sure I got everything.  I'd give the pumped milk to jake in a bottle each night before bed since that was when my supply was at its lowest.  I noticed an initial pick up in my supply-not a ton but hey, it was something.

Jake seemed to get more and more frustrated at feedings-I don't know if he was mad cause he wanted more but it was really hard when he would only eat 5 min on each side-that's no way to send message to the brain to make more.  The pumping didn't seem to be helping that much.

We met back with the lactation consultant a few days before we were scheduled for a check-up with our dr to see what progress we were making.  I was hoping to see him nearing 12 lbs, but based on his eating habits I wasn't holding my breathe.  11.10.  He had just gained 3 oz....sigh.....  A few days later (2.5 weeks since our last visit) we went to the dr's.  I was at least prepared for it to not be as high as the dr would want.  we weight him and he weighed 11.11.  Had gained an oz in the past 3 days.  Needless to say I was discouraged.

The past few weeks code and I had been talking and thinking a lot about what we would do if he couldn't gain the weight he needed/get the nutrients/calories he needed etc.  The consultant had offered the idea of continuing breastfeeding and supplementing with rice cereal.  When I suggested that to the dr he said that he worried the rice cereal wouldn't be the kind of calories/nutrients that jake would need-not enough to replace a better supplement, say formula. etc.  I had had that same worry when I considered the rice cereal idea.

So we've decided to supplement with formula.  At first, as you can imagine, I felt guilty that I couldn't make enough for Jake-mad at myself that I had fed him only on one side the whole time-who knows how differently my supply would be if I had done it right from the beginning etc.  You start second-guessing EVERYTHING you did wondering if it was going to be this way no matter what or if you could have done it better.  Obviously these worries are pointless-it is what it is and now we need to do what is best for Jake.  If the only way for him to get the calories and nutrients is to have formula then that's what we're going to do.  I mean, I know formula is not a bad thing.  Heck, I was raised on formula and I turned out just fine-I don't have crazy allergies or health problems etc.  It's silly but I can't help but worry about being judged by people who are REALLY intense about breastfeeding.  I mean...I wanted to do it-I'm not against it, and I'll try again with all of our future kids-maybe I'll have a better supply the 2nd time etc.  It's just.....of all the different categories of people in the world...I feel like moms are the MOST critical/ judgmental towards each other.  I'm sure half of the time it's not intentional, just comes with the territory I guess.

Though formula is not ideal-there are a few perks.  Like, how now it's WAY easier to go on dates or to the temple and use a babysitter.  Before it was always stressful cause it would take a LOT of planning ahead and pumping to try to get enough for just one feeding-didn't equal to very long outings haha.  Cody gets to participate in feedings which is kinda fun.
It's also a lot less stressful knowing EXACTLY how many oz your kid is getting at every feeding, or if they're still hungry-no biggie, just make more-no waiting for your supply to catch up.

So I tell the dr what we've been thinking and that we want to do what's best for Jake and if that means supplementing with formula than we're on board etc.  He agreed and gave us some free formula to try.

Think that was the end of this stressful situation? HA! think again, my life is never that simple.


So we give him his first bottle (I still nurse him first and then top him off with formula and will do this til my supply runs completely out so he at least gets good antibodies etc).  He fought it at first but something clicked and he chugged it down-all 4 oz.  i'm not sure if he's ever been that full haha.  Then later as Cody was getting him ready for bed (this was about 3 hrs after his bottle) he called me in.  Jake had this light speckly rash on his stomach/chest and his right eye had this dark shadow under it.  My heart sank-crap, he must be allergic.  Instantly I think-cause I couldn't make enough milk so now my kid gets to have allergic reactions.  So now I don't know what to do....he hasn't acted differently, he's his usual happy self-no gas or anything...we had really thought we had dodged a bullet-easiest transition ever!

So the next day I called the dr's office and told a nurse his symptoms and asked what we should do. (he wasn't vomiting, having trouble breathing etc.)  We went in to see the dr the second day in a row.  Our dr wasn't available so we saw another one in the practice.  I didn't like him much-didn't really listen very well and wouldn't explain his line of thinking.  He looked at Jake all over and asked a bunch of questions-to most of which the answer was "no".  He then said that he wasn't convinced that it was an allergic reaction (Even tho I tried to tell him that I got itchy eczema from milk when I was a kid AND code has some sort of allergy to dairy in general-again not a good listener.)  So he said that it could be a viral rash.  Apparently babies can get rashes after getting over a virus.  He said to not give him the formula that we had bought him (we were hoping to get him hooked on the costco kirkland brand) but to try the gerber goodstart that the dr gave us and if the rash got worse then stop right away and try a soy formula.  If it got worse after the soy formula bring him back in for further testing. If the rash didn't get worse-keep using the gerber and see if the rash doesn't clear up on its own in the next 3-4 days then you can try the kirkland brand again and see if it comes back.  If it doesn't then it was viral-if it does then it must be kirkland brand.  I thought he was a moron.  I was curious what made him not convinced that this was allergic (seemed obvious to me-I mean that's quite the coincidence that he manages to get a rash from a virus that he just got over the SAME DAY we give him formula for the first time)-I asked: do kids who have allergic reactions generally have more severe of a reaction than this?  his response: not necessarily.....so why aren't you convinced?!

I went home wondering why they couldn't just do the test to see if he's allergic right away rather than making me expose him to further allergins.  So he's had 3-4 bottles since and nothing seems to be getting worse-some of it is even better like his eye.....shrug.  I'm still not convinced but we'll see....maybe the crazy dr is right....

this is fun.