Tom and I have been telling each other all week how much bigger she looks and how she seems to be outgrowing her clothes again, so we were pretty sad to see from the scale that she'd only gained 1oz again in the past week. To give you an idea, she should be gaining at least .5oz per day. So needless to say, that was completely inadequate. The doctor came in and discussed with us for a bit, letting us know she was going to be proactive in making sure there is nothing physically wrong with Ellie. She ordered a whole panel of blood tests and we also have to head to the bigger hospital nearby to have a sweat test performed to rule out cystic fibrosis.
I'm also supposed to stop nursing and start pumping and add some calories to the milk I'm able to pump. With that comes a dilemma - the reason we went to exclusive breastfeeding at 6 weeks was because my supply was beginning to tank in response to the pumping. So I don't know how long I'll be able to last like that. Not to mention when I pumped after I got home today, I only got 1oz of milk. Wayyyy not enough. I've done fenugreek, I've done oatmeal, I've done marathon pumping and nursing sessions. I desperately want to keep nursing her, but I just don't think it's going to work. My plan for the weekend is to focus on feeding her formula bottles, 4oz at a time. I'm going to pump before feeding her and I'm going to nurse her after she finishes the bottles. Hopefully that'll keep me going for a while longer, though it will be a huge pain (and very time-consuming). On Monday, I'm going to try and schedule one last appointment with the lactation consultant. If she can't come up with anything workable, I'm going to have to adjust to the idea of formula feeding Ellie and nursing her after her "real" bottle feedings.
I'm pretty disappointed because this is so important to me, but if she isn't gaining then there isn't any other option. If I can keep my supply up for the next few weeks while we give her formula and run all these tests, and she still doesn't gain any weight, then we'll just have to be content knowing that while she's healthy, she will always be tiny. Then we can go back to exclusively breastfeeding. Regardless, I'm hoping to give her some breastmilk for as long as I possibly can. My ideal would be through next winter, my long-term goal is 1 year, and my short-term goal is six months. If I can make it through the next month and a half, we should have much better view of what is keeping her from gaining and we can make decisions from there.
Oh - one good thing from the appointment. As she was laying on the scale to be weighed, she just started cracking up. It was the best laugh I've ever heard from her and it actually took me a minute to realize she was laughing. She finds humor in the strangest things!
5 comments:
Hang in there, Shannon! Don't kill yourself over nursing/pumping...stress from all the extra work will only decrease your supply more. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be, though. So funny that she cracked up on the scale. Charlotte almost always SCREAMED on the scale but Reagan's been pretty calm so far. Wouldn't you love to know what she's thinking? :)
I know...as I'm sitting there trying to eke out my paltry 1oz, I started sobbing, then got frustrated and cried harder because I knew the crying wasn't going to help letdown any. Thank you, hormones.
And I really would LOVE to know what the heck she finds so funny...so far it's been peekaboo (pretty normal), poking her forehead (no idea), dancing (OK, I can get that, I'm certainly no Dancing with the Stars winner), and the scale (yeah....).
Harper wasn't a preemie, but this reminds me a lot of how her first few months were and her not gaining much on my breastmilk :( I hope you can get it to work out for you both! Thinking of you!
For what it's worth, my SIL struggled with supply issues with her first for many many months and when she finally went to formula, she was so much happier and could enjoy being a new mom so much more. I think she only nursed for a couple of weeks with her second and never looked back. It's frustrating because you feel like it should be a choice, something you can control, but it's just another one of those things (like labor & delivery, which you know a little something about!) that you can't always be the one to decide. :-/
Christie - went back and checked Harper's stats in your sidebar, and her 4 month birthday post and that's made me feel a LOT better about this decision...that's quite a big weight jump and what Ellie needs, I think. Pumping isn't going much better today...I know I'm not fully emptying myself with the pump, but I'm still only getting around an ounce, even with manual expression after using the pump. I did get an article from a friend, though, saying that 10mL/kg is sufficient to provide health beneifts, which is only 40mL at this point, and definitely something I can do, so that makes me feel better about it, too. I never imagined how hard it'd be to give it up, though!
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