Turtle Monkey

I feel pretty awful about my supply.

When we got to Texas, I had been nursing with the SNS at every feeding except for overnight (because he’s usually nursing pretty much nonstop overnight to begin with and the SNS is hard enough to deal with during the day). I had been on the domperidone for a week and I really felt full of milk.

With the stress of the holidays and being in someone else’s home, I stopped using the SNS and I was not adamant about nursing him first before every bottle. I also wasn’t very good about taking the domperidone. I just feel stupid about this. I should have done it. I should have always made an excuse to do it. At first I would leak like crazy if I missed a feeding. I could squirt milk everywhere. By the end of the week, it was like my supply dropped back down to what it was.

So now I’m back at home, back at work and I feel like I’m right back at square one again. I’m still making milk, but it doesn’t feel like as much as before. I felt like I was so close to getting at least a bit of a supply and I let it slip through my fingers. Stupid, stupid Lynda. Seriously, this is the dumbest thing I’ve done regarding breastfeeding and I’m not sure how I can forgive myself.

My plan is to go back on the domperidone - 3 pills 3 times a day. I will try nursing with the SNS any time I am at home with Elias (or at the very least, will nurse him before bottles). Once I get access to our Mother’s Room here at work I’m going to try pumping every three hours at least. I might try to see if I can sneak away every two hours and pump - it theoretically shouldn’t be hard since the rooms have network access and I have a work laptop I can use. If I can find time, I may also try pumping after feedings when I’m at home. Since I don’t have access to the mother’s room yet, I’ve been hand expressing in the bathroom, but I haven’t saved any of that milk, nor do I know how much of it there is.

I really hope I can get my supply back up to at least what it was when we got to Texas, but I’m kind of doubting that will happen. I wish there was a reliable way to measure how much breastmilk Elias is getting every day, but there isn’t. It would be really nice to cut back on the amount of formula he’s getting once he starts solid foods, though I still think nursing him exclusively at any point in his first year is a pipe dream.

It’s nearly noon and Elias is doing pretty well today. He woke up at 8am and just wanted to be sitting upright. I propped him up on my pillow, keeping a close eye on him as I made the bed, gathered his toys for the day and started the diaper laundry (my 5 extra BumGenius diapers came in the mail! Woo!)

He ate around 9am and was content after that in his swing for about 20 minutes while I did some dishes and folded the clean diapers I neglected yesterday. TMI, I know, but he seems to prefer pooping when he’s in his swing. He will keep it in if I’m carrying him around, so I just put him in the swing after his morning feeding. He usually only poops once a day.

After changing his diaper and giving him a morning sponge bath, he played with his musical gym toy for another 20 minutes or so. Then I put on my Moby, popped him in and did a few more chores and made myself something to eat. At one point he wiggled around for about a minute (he does this when he gets really tired and it usually precedes him crying for a few minutes, fighting off sleep). But then he just put his face into my chest and fell asleep. Win! I love it when we get through the morning without crying. He’s been asleep for probably about an hour and a half now and will probably be ready to eat when he wakes up. From what I can tell so far, he seems to be feeling better than yesterday. I hope this continues.

In the past few weeks since I’ve been completely off the Reglan, I feel like my milk supply has lowered dramatically. I don’t really know why I feel this way other than I no longer leak from one side at night, which had started when I started the Reglan. I’m still taking herbal supplements, but they don’t really seem to be doing any good at all. In one more attempt to try to up my supply, I’ve ordered Domperidone from a UK website (since the FDA won’t allow it to be prescribed in the US for breastfeeding purposes). People have said wonderful things about this drug, so I hope it does something. I feel so defeated about not being able to exclusively breastfeed. I hate formula. I hate bottles. I’ve gone back to using the SNS full time, but it doesn’t really make any difference supply wise.

Anyway, Elias is waking up, so we’ll start our afternoon together. I hope it goes as well as the morning did.