The Moo thing…

Ever since I blogged about wanting to bf Emme in my earlier post, I have been getting alot of advise and also support from friends as well as fellow bloggers. Greg is quite supportive too. It’s like he has made it his personal mission to help me increase my milk supply with supplements and a pretty ‘canggih’ breast pump. But I must say this, in a good way.. I’m like thinking after all the money spent I MUST succeed! In a bad way… it’s a lot of pressure too.

So.. what’s my progress after 2 weeks and 2 days as a moo?

Look, I already know that t’s not easy and I’ve tried it before but… I must say it again.. It’s NOT easy!!!

I didn’t get to bf her immediately after birth as all the forums and books say because I was feeling pretty sick from my epidural and was throwing up my lovely breakfast. But it was ok when we finally got to it when they brought her to me after they have cleaned her up. Plus they had to warm her up a little as she was a little blue.

After we got home on the 3rd day I was in tears! I was SO engorged, I was in SO, SO much pain. I think I scared Greg and my confinement lady. She tried to help me massage but gave up, I think she couldn’t tahan to see me cry. Greg was the same… He went straight out to buy me a breast pump. Initially that was also a very painful process but after lots of warm towels and tears… I had to massage myself in between pumps. Not fun at all… I was curled up in bed crying in pain. It took me awhile to get thing ‘going’. By then I could only manage to express about each time 40ml. My supply slowly increased to about 2oz each time I express, over a few days.

I know that night feeds are the most important as that is when the hormone prolactin only works at night and that is what produces milk.  But the night feeds are the hardest. First of all Emmelyn doesn’t sleep with me, she is sleeping in the same room as the confinement lady. Initially she brings the baby to me at night but that slowly stopped and now she takes the liberty to make Emme formula milk at nigh, she says so that the baby sleeps longer. I actually wanted the baby to room in with us but was met with alot of objections from my Mom and was also afraid that with the baby constantly waking for feeds she’ll wake Greg and Caitlyn. My Mom on the other hand was against the baby sleeping in with me because she says that I should get all the rest this month. (I really don’t see how as I often wake up at night to take care of the baby.. my confinement lady is lazy) Anyway that is another issue on top of all the other issues I have on this confinement lady. Then Emme had jaundice… She had to be given more fluids and I wasn’t producing enough milk, she was waking all the time and my mom and the confinement lady insisted on topping up with formula milk so that I wasn’t so stressed. So I didn’t think that helped with my supply too.

Besides all that… night feeds are the loneliest time… I really don’t enjoy it. Even now I wake up at night to express I don’t enjoy it. I think bf is like a very lonely crusade. So much so that at certain point last week I was so depressed I sat on the side of my bed expressing and crying at the same time. I don’t know what for? I remember I felt defeated and lonely and my milk just wasn’t increasing… I felt like I was just a milk machine and not a very good one at that… By now I have only been able to express 3oz twice, that when I missed 1 night feed. Otherwise I’ll usually manage a little more then 2oz. And Emme is taking about 3-4oz by now.

Do I still want to do it?

Yes… but honestly I’m not very optimistic about it. Up till now, my supply doesn’t seem like it is increasing.. I was just joking that maybe I’m just not physically made to produce that much? And on top of that my confinement lady may be saying that “Oh… Breast milk is very good..blah..blah..blah..” But her actions speaks otherwise.. she make Emme formula whenever she can. And she just reminded me that we are almost out of formula. My mother is not very supportive of me bf either… Saying that I should be resting at this time instead so baby doesn’t sleep with me.. So with all the odds, it really doesn’t look rosy.

I also just realized that while bfing there are lots of stuff that I can’t eat. I love my coffee, sashimi my occasional drinks when I’m out…. I have been reading up a lot about these topics on the net.. It’s really tough. On one hand I really want to give Emme the best and I know that breast is best but it’s not gonna come easy. And it really makes me very depressed when I don’t have enough and hate the feeling that it’s all up to me alone. It’s not a very nice feeling…

I just read what I’ve wrote.. I’m so sorry for those of you who plan to bf and chance upon this rather negative post. It didn’t started of that way and I really didn’t meant it to be  but … it’s just what I’m going through..