Those first few hours after Paisley was born were bliss! She lay on my chest, skin to skin, then she started to look for my nipple for her first feed!
I always wanted to breast feed and to be honest I thought I would have no issues at all, the woman in my family have breast fed their children! Paisley drank so well from that first little latch it started off so perfect!
About 12 hours after she was born I couldn’t wake her for a feed so I buzzed for a midwife to come in and help! We couldn’t get her to latch as she wouldn’t wake properly, we even got her fully undressed and put her skin to skin. The midwife noted she was a bit cold to touch, so she buzzed another midwife to come in. They started to do some hand expression on me to get some milk (once you’ve had a baby it’s almost like your body isn’t yours anymore, you do whatever is necessary for that little baby). They tried to syringe some milk in paisleys mouth and there was no reaction from her! They quickly whisked her out of the room and told us to follow. Before I could even have my top back on properly they had disappeared. Then one of the midwifes popped her head out of another room and told us to come in here. They grabbed me, sat me on a chair and (excuses the pun) milked me like a cow, literally! They just kept expressing milk off me to syringe to paisley as they said it would help bring her temperature up! She was so cold she has just gone all limp they couldn’t get her to open her eyes or even move a muscle! I don’t really remember what I felt at that time I just kind of sat there, boobs out, watching them work with paisley, rubbing all over her body to try get her to wake. They turned on the heat lamp above her and asked the ladies at the desk to page pediatrics urgently. I think by now I had started to panic all I kept saying to myself was “we are in the best place for her”! They kept asking me questions like how premature was she, but I was so confused cause paisley was born at 39/2. Even though her birth weight wasn’t tiny, 6lbs 15oz, she was extremely skinny with a lot of loose skin. They now think something to do with my antibody may have cause a few troubles late in my pregnancy and my placenta had stopped working so paisley had lost weight in the womb as she wasn’t getting enough nutrients through the placenta.
When pediatrics came in she did all kinds of tests including blood tests. They just pricked paisleys heel to take a blood test, but I remember watching her squeeze paisleys foot to get enough blood out and it looked like she was bending her foot in half, and there was still no reaction from paisley! She finally started to get warmer and show signs of movement and waking up! We stayed in that room for a while with paisley while she warmed up under the heat lamp. When she was fully alert we got to go back to our room. Safe to say it was a very stressful couple of hours and I think it was the beginning of a couple of issue to follow.
I continued breast feeding paisley but it was starting to become quite painful! I had a lactation consultant come see me and she thought the latch looked perfect and you could see paisley suckling and swallowing which also looked great. She said sometimes you can get a bit tender as your body adjusts to it all. So I just shrugged it off and hoped it would get better.
On the Sunday, the day after paisley was born, my midwife came to see me. She told me she had transferred me to a Wanganui midwife as we were living closer to Wanganui. This was a bit upsetting for me as I had told my midwife we had moved and we had discussed me coming into town for some visits as well as her coming to my house. In hindsight this was the best thing that could have happened for both paisley and I.
We went home on Monday, I was still struggling through the pain of breast feeding and also feeling unwell myself. My new midwife (Jess) came to meet us that Monday afternoon and we just chatted about my labour, the ordeal with paisley getting cold and my breast feeding issues. She was honestly so lovely and instantly put me at ease, ensuring we would get through the feeding issues.
The next couple of days were hell! Apart from the lack of sleep, the feeding just got more and more painful! My mum was staying at our house to help and thank god cause I don’t know what I would have done without her! My nipples began to crack, blister and bleed, they looked like they were about to fall off! I’ll never forget during a feed I took paisley off and my nipple was so destroyed through tears I said to Mum “omg is my nipple going to fall off?!” I was distraught and feeding paisley became an absolute nightmare! On top of ruined nipples when my milk came in I got so engorged that paisley couldn’t latch to my left breast as it was so swollen. I was then having to try express the milk off to avoid mastitis! The best pump was the haaka as it caught my let down when I was feeding off the other side. But even with that I was not getting enough milk off and I swear to god the milk was up to my collar bones and out to my armpits! I was becoming more and more uncomfortable and completely lost my appetite! I tried everything we could think of, creams, nipple shields, expressing but nothing was working. My mum suggested getting ultrasound done on my nipples, as she had done this when her nipples were being destroyed by her second baby! So I did this ASAP and the local physio got me in on the Wednesday, I had a session a day for two days! Then on the Friday the whole ordeal became too much for both paisley and I and paisley just wouldn’t latch! We tried for so long until it started coming up to 8 hours since she had been fed and she wasn’t even a week old! My midwife came out at 8pm to try help but we just couldn’t get her on! Basically the choice was give to me, keep trying, try and express off to feed her or the dreaded “give her a bottle of formula”! I tried so hard to express but I just wasn’t getting anywhere near enough off to feed paisley! So I decided to give her formula, and you know what, I instantly felt the biggest sigh of relief! Of course I had a big cry as I felt like I was letting paisley down, but to know the pain was over was such a huge weight off my shoulders!
This was Paisley 1 day old vs 1.5 weeks old
Feeding had become such a nightmare I began to dread feeding, I didn’t want paisley near me and I was terrified of people coming to visit in case they would wake her and she would want a feed! It was totally ruining my bond with paisley as just the idea of feeding her made me want to vomit!
When we decided to put paisley on formula my midwife said I needed to compress my breasts and put cabbage leaves on them to try stop my milk coming in! We could already see signs of mastitis coming on, so she also put me on oral antibiotics!
The feeling of more milk coming in when I was already full to the brim is something indescribable, I honestly just wanted to chop them off!!!
Paisley took to the bottle no problem at all! I think breast feeding was becoming stressful for her too!
On Saturday (paisley was 1 week old) my midwife came to visit us again to check how everything was going! She was happy to see paisley was drinking the bottles no problem! However she took one look at my breast’s and sent me straight to hospital as I had full blown mastitis! We went straight through to Wanganui ED and I was admitted after my pulse and blood pressure were through the roof and my temp was over 39 degrees!
They pumped me full of antibiotics through an IV line for 2 days, and luckily I responded well to that so I avoided having to get surgery!
I finally got my appetite back and paisley was thriving on the bottle! It felt so amazing to finally feel like things were falling into place for us and I could relax and enjoy my gorgeous baby!
That’s not to say I didn’t struggle with the fact I couldn’t breast feed. I had days where I felt like an awful mother and I even tried to start it up again, but my like supply had dropped off too much! I wasn’t willing to spend every free minute I had to pump either, as I knew it would just start to stress me out again and I didn’t need put us all through that!
I think that maybe the aggressive hand expressions done when paisley went cold may have started to irritate my nipples and it all went downhill from there! Also my midwife believes I possibly had some sort of infection before I had paisley as the mastitis came on so fast!
At the end of the day paisley is a happy, healthy little girl who is clever, funny and constantly on the go! When I look back at it now I would change A thing! Formula allowed paisley and I to bond and enjoy each other’s company (even at 3am)! And I could even have the odd night off as Kere could give paisley a bottle!
FED IS BEST
Healthy for Me and My 3 