A Love Affair with My Pump

A Love Affair with My Pump

It all started on a nice, sunny day in Newport Beach, CA.  You came in at the perfect time, you were the hero.  You were the middle man between me and my little, teeny, tiny, 4 pound baby, transferring small, but vital amounts of sweet, sweet colostrum.  When each nurse came in and checked us out, they would say things like, "Wow! Thats amazing!" or "You have a great supply."  I was excited to see how well we would do together, to make more and more milk for precious little Harrison.  

[picture from my mom while buying me a bra at Target]

 

Our first session in the hospital was a bit awkward. I had to hold my pump up through the entire 20 minute session. That ended quickly when I called my mom and told her don't come back to the hospital until she has a "hands-free pumping bra" with her. I still can't thank her enough for that, seriously 20 minutes without the use of my hands was plenty (thats probably bad to say since I have some students with no hands 😬)

Shout out to Sean for being there for the first latch!

It was pure bliss in the hospital. Every two hours I would nurse little Harrison. The lactation ladies would come in and say "Aww, what a peanut! He has a great latch for such a little guy."  I must have heard the words "great latch" a million times, leaving me the most confident Mom in the entire hospital.  But even with his "great latch" everyone still thought it was a good idea to pump after each nursing session to keep my supply up.  

Triple Feed:  Nurse, Bottle, Pump. Repeat. 

While in the hospital, they introduced me into a lovely thing called the "triple feed." I would nurse (20 minutes), give a bottle of pumped milk (20 minutes), then pump (20 minutes).  If you do the math, that's a solid hour.  That doesn't even include the burping, setting up the pump parts, changing dirty diapers, making formula if needed, etc.  And they expect you to do it every 2 hours. Sooo, that leaves an hour of "free" time to literally recover from the battle of the triple feed.  In that free hour, you wash the bottles, wash the pump parts, get the next supplies ready, make sure you are drinking plenty of water, entertain your visitors, maybe go pee if you have a chance. Then the baby starts crying, so you do it all again. It was all fun and games until we were averaging 3-4 hours of sleep a night for two weeks straight. At the two week lactation check up, I confessed my struggles, and she agreed that I should cut out the nighttime nursing session, and just do the bottle and pump.  That strategy bought us a little more sanity, about an extra hour (combined) of sleep through the night and less of a wrestling match between Harrison and I when he wasn't feeling the boob. 

I made multiple attempts of combining the bottle feed and pump session, but I just about lost in on Harrison when he would kick off the tubing for the 100th time in a 20 minute session. Wasn't worth the stress.  

The Milk Monster

As Harrison started to eat more, he started to develop quite a interest in the bottle. He absolutely loved that the milk would rush out of the nipple like a bountiful waterfall. When he would nurse, he would suck for about 20 seconds before unlatching and searching for his bestie, the bottle. We got pretty good at the "bait & switch" (not even kidding, this is real thing in the breast feeding world). We would bottle feed him, slowly pull out the bottle and then insert my very full breast and squeeze the heck out of it until his mouth was full of Mama's sweet breast milk.  When he would realize that it was me and not the bottle, we would calmly reinsert the bottle and start all over.  He was smart, and knew we were playin him. 

 

Totally a fake smile. He was miserable, I was miserable, 

we were all miserable.

Day by day, we started cutting out nursing sessions. We would try a few times a day, only when he was happy and content. We went back to lactation, they said he has a definite tongue tie, and recommended we address it with our pediatrician. The pediatrician said since he was so early, we should wait until he is at least 6 weeks since his mouth might still be growing. We waited and waited, 6 weeks came along, we scheduled the revision and had the procedure done a few weeks later. Literally just a small snipped under the tongue. Here we are, 8 weeks in, a free'd tongue and ready to start from scratch.  

The day of the tongue tie surgery, I was as eager as a kid waiting for Christmas.  I didn't even want to wait the recommended 15 minutes to stop the bleeding to try and nurse him.  I remember driving him home, listening to his tired cry and trying to stay as calm as possible to keep my milk feng shui on. I brought him in the house, set up the glider with my water, the nursing pillow, and plenty of burp clothes. I had him latch and he quietly sucked for 30 seconds, then let out a giant scream. I knew it would take time. So I gave it time, about two weeks worth of time trying over and over again, until I was heartbroken. All those short little 10-15 minute nursing stints were more like pacifier sessions. My supply tanked, I didn't know when to pump, I was giving him more and more formula and I so badly wanted to stay hopeful.  

Shortly after that, I decided to make a full time commitment to my pump. 

I lost all modesty and would pump whenever and wherever I needed to. I was not gonna let no pumping schedule hold me down. #FOMO

I pumped in the car (usually when driving), at festivals, campgrounds, my parents backyard, the in laws couch, in front of friends (even my closest guy friends, sorry Justin and Sean, and the random friends of friends) and just about every corner of our house you can possibly imagine.  My pump was apart of me. One time when leaving the house to run to the grocery store I packed it up to take it along as I usually did and Luke said, "Won't you be back in like 15 minutes? Why do you need your pump?" At that moment I realized I had a pumping addiction (not really, but my family would say I did). I spent my time looking up pumping blogs, researched exclusive pumping strategies,  online shopped for pump-friendly clothes and talked about it non-stop. Jared once said I needed to join Pumpers Anonymous.

I continued that pump life for a solid 5 months.  I slowly faded out the middle of the night pump {labeled MOTNP on the cyber space} between month 3 and 4 which gave me an extra 45 minutes of sleep every night! Then I started to phase out a few day time pumps and before you knew it, I was pumping 3 times a day for 30 minutes a session. Not so bad, right? Only an hour and a half of my time was spent hooked up.  As they say in the lactation world, "If you build it (milk supply in this case), they will come (more milk? the baby? who knows?)" So as I stopped building my milk supply with my measely 3 PPD (pumps per day for you non-pumpers)& my milk stopped coming. I went back to work for two short weeks, and started producing about 2 ounces a session, aka 6 ounces a day. I slowly began to realize that what I was doing was legit crazy. Luke's Dad even said I needed a pumping intervention to get me to stop pumping, jokingly of course, but probably really serious. EVERYONE WAS SICK OF MY PUMP, INCLUDING ME!

Here I am down to one pump per day. After pumping barely an ounce this morning, I coped with the fact that my pumping days are coming to an end.  Sometime in the next few days, when I no longer have the painful urge to relieve some pressure, I will wash my pump parts for the final time, pack it up and put it away until the next baby comes along.  Part of me is sad, another part feels guilty, but the best part of me knows that I will get to enjoy that much more time with Harrison.  I can pick him up without trying to balance him and my flanges. I wont be mad at him for kicking the tubing off all day when Luke's at work and he just can't be put down.  I can run and get him when he is crying, instead of waiting just a few more minutes to get every last drop. And I can pack up and leave the house without having to worry about hooking up to that damn pump mid drive (literally hooked up and plugged in while on the 91, too many times to count). I couldn't have gone through this crazy journey without my breastmilk obsessed husband who said nothing but encouraging words to me all 5 months, our Granny Nanny (my mom) who always stepped in to give Harrison a bottle while I was pumping, even in the middle of the night, to my in laws who so casually allowed me to pump on their couch without ever batting an eye and to every poor person who had to come in contact with my giant, stretched out nipples.  I promise, at least until the next kid, to keep my shirt down and my nipples safe and sound my bra.