When my son was born, there was a lot of hubbub in the delivery room with a medical intervention to get him breathing. He was moved around to another infant revive station and when he was breathing and for sure they knew he'd live, I held him for only a moment until he was whisked away again, this time in the company of my husband, for tests, blood draw, a bath, and etc. In those moments, I didn't even think to breastfeed him. I just held his tiny fingers and breathed a prayer of relief. I am not sure I even spoke to him... I felt so shell shocked and exhausted and relieved.
When we were both taken to the recovery room, a half dozen or more visitors came, too. Everyone wanted to meet the little guy. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about how he needed to eat soon, but I didn't say anything. I was excited to watch his relatives discover his beauty and marvel at his smallness, too. I knew that our visitors were only here for a short time, and for some reason, I felt compelled that their needs came first. That is to say, I didn't feel comfortable asking them to leave because I knew they would not be staying much longer. I felt a bit like the hostess in my recovery room, a role I don't want to repeat in the future.
Our son was born at 10:40 am, and when by 1:15 he still hadn't been fed. I started to get antsy. I don't remember how we finally got everyone to leave the room, but by 3:30 pm, we were alone. The nurses had just come in to set things up for us for the afternoon and taken our vitals. I remember one saying, "Okay, then. Its time to feed your baby!".
And then she left.
I was surprised. Everyone left us to take care of this little gentleman. No one waited around to make sure that he would start nursing properly, or that I would start nursing properly. I thought there would be some guidance or something.
But alone, the three of us as a family, we made it alright. The baby began nursing as easily and naturally. I was simply amazed.
The nurse came in later and said if he had 10-15 "good slurps" that was better than expected, and we should be happy. Our child had nursed for about 15 minutes, much more than a few slurps. She gave some good advice about newborns needing to suck for five minutes for nutrition, but really no more, because their stomachs were so small and the amount of colostrum I was producing was so slight. This eased my tension. He did it! He was done! It went okay!
Nearly every time I fed my son, I would call in a nurse or lactation consultant. I found the night nurses, who were generally older, retired nurses who picked up shifts and enjoyed the nightly bathing duties of newborns, especially helpful. They gave plainspoken, confident, and helpful advice. Having an old lady telling me my son had a good latch and I was holding him correctly made me feel reassured. Made me feel
more relaxed and more normal.
Because the sensations of breastfeeding did NOT feel normal or natural or everyday. It felt so weird! Surreal. A body part with a dual function? It was would have been like discovering my feet could turn into scuba flippers when I swam. Or that my tongue automatically new how to speak Spanish.
I watched for hunger cues to know when to feed our baby. He would get squirmy and lick at his lips, so I would take that as a hunger signal. He never actually cried from hunger, even though he would have a span of four hours or so without a feeding. The nurses would keep a record of his meal times on the whiteboard, which was helpful for me. I relied on those times to help me plan the day and night.
On the second night, I fed the baby at 11:45 pm, knowing full well I would have a partial night of sleep and feed him sometime around 2 am, but before 5 am. I would wake and check the clock, then check the baby, and return to sleep. He was okay and sleeping soundly. When a nurse tech came for my vitals around 4 am, I knew it would be time soon for me to feed him. I got settled and prepared to feed him.
This time, it did not go so well. He was sleeping even as I undressed him to his diaper, turned on bright lights, and roused my husband for assistance. The baby would make a little squeak or sigh, and cuddle into me, and continue his slumber. After a frantic ten minutes of trying to get him to nurse, we rang for a lactation consultant. She tried many techniques to get him to eat, but finally used sugar water on her finger to elicit sucking behavior. He responded well to the sweet stuff! I felt a bit odd and guilty tricking him into drinking the milk by using sugar until I realized that it is an uncanny coincidence to my husband's food preferences. When he was young, he had a distaste for plain milk. His mother would add some chocolate or strawberry syrup to the milk to get him to drink it! To this day he does not like regular white milk. I haven't had any trouble getting our son to drink, but if I do, I think I may sweeten the deal.
All other breastfeeding encounters at the hospital went well... textbook, really. I attribute the success at least partially to the informative class I took at our hospital and to the kindly nurses. The books I read were only somewhat helpful. I believe there are no diagrams or written instructions that can fully prepare someone for the first hand experience of nursing a baby. Its a hands-on learning activity, one that takes practice, and one that is a new journey for mother and baby. It is one of the first things I have done on my own with someone else for someone else that did not require training beforehand.
And that is the story of my start of breastfeeding adventurs.
