So, let me share my milk story with you! I gave birth at 29 weeks. Just to put things in perspective that’s 4 weeks after my bump first started showing and just 6 weeks after I first started feeling kicks.
Baby was rushed away as soon as I delivered and I didn’t see him again till about 2 hours later. No Skin to Skin, no early initiation of breastfeeding…
And then came my first visit to the NICU. I was hurled into a dark tunnel of unfamiliarity; loud noises, tubes, wires, rushing nurses, and one very, very, tiny little Momo! Eyes shut & little fists clenched, I couldn’t recognize this little guy as my own. I loved him with every fiber of my being but I really didn’t know him.
Feelings of guilt & fear swept over me like a wave and I could feel my heart sinking into my stomach.
So you can imagine, I didn’t think establishing a milk supply would be possible.
My first pumping session gave me nothing! Not a single drop. The second session of pumping gave me a few drops of colostrum after 30 minutes, pain & less hope than I started with.
Incredible support from my husband, multiple breastfeeding specialists, nurses & my neonatologist’s advice that this was the best thing I could do (in my situation, it was the ONLY thing I could do), motivated me to keep going. I created a schedule that I stuck to religiously. Every 2 hours, like clockwork, day or night, I’d pump for 15 mins. I invested in a double pump & a hands free bustier (both by Medela, available at Cookie Dough), as I was told that double stimulation can increase milk supply by 40%. By the third day I started to see results, and slowly but surely I established a healthy milk supply. Baby Mo is still being fed by a tube, but I’m hoping that 3 weeks from now we can move on to bottle feeding, and, eventually, breastfeeding. It may not work out the way I imagine, but I’ve learned to accept that things don’t always do.
Not all milk stories are the same and there certainly isn’t one milk story that’s the right milk story. But this is mine. It’s nothing like what I wanted or what I prepared for, but it’s special to me all the same ♥️
What’s your #milkstory?
Milk body available at Cookie Dough ⭐️
Photo Credit: https://www.instagram.com/laurielauriane