Fed Is Best

So in my last post, I mentioned that I am nursing Rudi. Lots of people are surprised and amazed by this, and to be honest, so am I. It turns out that all adult women, whether or not they've given birth, can in theory produce breastmilk. Breasts and mammary glands work on a feedback loop: if your body thinks you need milk, it will produce milk! Crazy, hey?

Before Rudi was born, I saw my doctor and followed this protocol which has been developed to help other moms of babies born via surrogate or adoptive moms who know when their babe is arriving. How it worked for me is: I took the birth control pill straight through (no breaks) from 12 weeks gestation till about 34 weeks gestation to mimic pregnancy. At the same time I was taking domperidone (which sounds like 'Don Perignon', which would be WAY MORE FUN) to stimulate my milk makers into getting ready. At 34 weeks gestation (after one last camping trip!), I quit taking the birth control and started pumping, using a high quality electric pump. Every 3 hours or more of I could manage it. Much to my surprise, after 2 or 3 days of pumping, stuff started coming out! I was producing milk! Human bodies are SO STRANGE, and science is SO AMAZING! I didn't ever get to be producing very much - maybe half an ounce at a time per breast. But still, it was a start!

I kept pumping (which is NO FUN - it hurts and it takes a lot of time) until Rudi was born and then voila, I could feed him! Which was amazing. He had a good latch right away and for the first 3 or 4 days he was nursing like a champ.

However, it quickly became apparent that he wasn't getting enough; he dropped more weight and wasn't peeing enough. I was devastated. I felt horrible that my babe wasn't getting what he needed. Of course, this is the same day we got our first family pictures taken; I spent the morning after a night with no sleep because Rudi was up every hour hungry bawling and feeling terrible and then we had family pictures taken. Thankfully, you can't tell I had been crying for hours!

post-crying, with my dehydrated babe. We shoved a bottle in his face every time he moved after this.

I knew that the chances of me producing enough milk were small - most women who induce lactation will produce some milk, very few will produce ENOUGH milk. So Rudi also gets bottles.

Here is where people say 'wow, you're so lucky! He takes a bottle!' And yes, there are lots of convenient things about bottles. Other people can feed him is the biggest one. I think the thing to remember when you say this is: We didn't have a choice about the bottle. He needed to get enough food and the only way to get it into him was a bottle. We had to provide that and he had to take it.

Eating at the lake!

I mentioned in my last post that Rudi was super-chill (knock on wood). That hasn't changed and this personality trait has transferred into eating as well. Rudi still nurses like a champ (most of the time) and also takes a bottle. He doesn't seem to prefer the bottle yet, which will come I'm sure. Bottles require less effort to get more food. He also doesn't seem to care what's in the bottle. He sometimes gets formula (about which I feel zero guilt, and neither should you if your baby got formula: FED IS BEST) and lately, he's been getting donated breastmilk!

This is an amazing thing! Women who have extra breastmilk they aren't going to use (often because their own babies 'won't take a bottle') sometimes donate it to babies who need it! There is a network called 'Human Milk 4 Human Babies' where people can post in search of milk or if they have milk! It's incredible!

Right now I have about 300 oz or so of milk from 3 different women. Rudi has already had milk from 8 additional women. Networks of women have helped me collect this milk from all over the city and province - we got a delivery from Brandon today! The woman who had the milk brought it to the sister of a friend who brought it to me. What a miracle! We also have milk coming to us from Winkler and Steinbach. It's just amazing how people are willing to help each other out in this way. As stated above, pumping is not fun. It does not feel good, and I'm so so so so so amazingly grateful and appreciative that these women are willing to share their hard-won stash with my babe.

Some people have expressed reluctance about this: how do you know what's in the milk? This is totally unregulated - there is no quality control. My answer to that is: I already trusted another woman to carry Rudi for me. I can trust others to feed him too. And to be a woman who pumps milk to give to other babies to mess with them?!? It just seems like that would be SOOOO unlikely. So we are choosing to trust humanity and roll with it. They say that babies learn about food through breastmilk, so Rudi is getting a wide variety of experiences. So far he has not had any reactions or complaints about any of it. He also doesn't seem to care if I eat garlic or spicy food, so that makes it easy as well.

Passed out after nursing

I don't know how much milk I am producing for Rudi. I don't think it's much - maybe 1/4-1/3 of what he needs. In the first few weeks I definitely questioned whether it was worth it - each feed takes an hour. Rudi gets both boobs for about 10 min each and then the bottle. I still, when he is lazy or doesn't seem to get a lot at the boob, wonder if I should just give up on nursing all together. Lately, though, I've decided that I'm going to give it a time frame and stick with it till then. I like nursing him. Sometimes he smiles while nursing, which is the CUTEST! He doesn't smile while getting the bottle! Since we both seem to like it, we're going to continue doing it till Christmas at least and then see from there.

In the meantime I'm so grateful and appreciative to this network of women who are helping me feed my child.

I'm also so grateful for the kindness and mentorship of women who have done this before me. Several friends grappled with the 'not enough milk' problem and all of them were super supportive and encouraging. One of them gave me the idea to search out donated breast milk! There's a reason the saying 'It takes a village' sticks around: these things are so much more difficult if you try to do them in isolation. 

Humans are wonderful and amazing and awesome. Bodies are wonderful and amazing and awesome.

I feel really grateful and in awe of all of it.

Rudi thanks all of you for your milk!

PS: if you read this and you're like 'I have milk I won't use!', look up Human Milk for Human Babies in your area and donate it! If you live in MB, we'll happily use it :)