The birth of your first born is a whirl wind! Lot's of emotions, & the unknown of what to expect. I had planned on giving breast feeding a shot, although I was skeptical due to the horror stories, along with, I can't believe I'm saying this, I'm ticklish as all get out! Seriously! Sorry mom, close your ears, but I'm so ticklish, I don't even like my husband anywhere near my tatas unless.. well, we're hot & heavy. Because of this I wasn't sure how breast feeding would work out.
After giving birth, our sweet baby girl was taken down to the NICU. It was only 3 hours after giving birth that my husband wheeled me down to the NICU to see Nicolina, it was her first feeding for us! This meant learning to breast feed. As if I wasn't overwhelmed to begin with, they had a nurse try to instruct me how. I'll never forget how frustrated I was. The nurse that was teaching me was snippy, & doing the opposite of encouraging me. I was a wreck, exhausted, emotional from delivery, emotional from Nicolina being omitted to the NICU, and now this woman was talking to me like I was a child, with this tone like I should have known better.
Nicolina did great! She latched & was sucking just fine! Well, at least one of us had it down! The nurses told us we didn't have to come down for every feeding, as long as we were okay with supplementing, which I was. Again, I wasn't sure how long I could breast feed, so I wanted her to be able to transition if need be. After every feeding Joe & I went down for, we'd come back up to our room, order food & I would start pumping for a bit, before we knew it, it was time for the next feeding. We let the NICU nurse fully supplement her for an over night feeding each night so I could rest. I stopped putting her to my breast when she got her IV put in her head. I was not comfortable trying to situate her with the IV in that location, so this is when unknowingly, I started to exclusively pump.
Nicolina latched fine when we got out of the NICU, & sucked perfect! The problem was, she was downing the formula, I mean HOUSING IT! The nurses laughed at how many ounces she would take. (Nicolina was the healthiest baby in the NICU, we knew most of the babies were under weight, & while it broke our hearts that she was in there, we were lucky, SO LUCKY). So nursing her just wasn't cutting it for her, mamas flow was nothing like those Similac formula nipples she was so used to. Thus, an exclusively pumping mama.
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