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Power of milk

Shelby • Fri, Sep 18 • Happily married since 6/27/14, Connor Dean born 9/5/15

Hey everyone! I just wanted to share my experience and talk about the power of breast milk.

I had my son Connor Dean 11 days early on 9/5 by c section. I had pre eclampsia and my son was flatlining during my contractions. Not long after he was born he was sent to the NICU for having extremely low blood sugar. This began the hardest week of my life.

During this time I was stressed that my milk wouldn't come in. I met with a LC who showed me the ropes of pumping and how to nurse my son. I would try to nurse what colostrum that my body would give, then supplement with formula after. My son's doctor agreed that breastmilk would be the best thing for his health.

My son was soon diagnosed with hypoglycemia and after a CDC it was looking like even though I passed my glucose test during pregnancy, I had undiagnosed gestational diabetes towards the end of my pregnancy. He was put on an IV to give him glucose and was getting his poor feet pricked every 3 hours to check his levels.

This made me an absolute emotional wreck. I was hearing babies coming and going through the halls and I just wanted my baby with me. I was discharged in Tuesday and my husband and I were offered the opportunity to room in until our son could go home.

Day 3 I woke up for his 7am feeding and I was engorged! I My milk starting to come And I pumped an half an ounce. As I nursed more my son really caught on and was nursing for around 20 minutes and supplementing less. The more I nursed the better he seemed to get. We also had lots of skin to skin time.

By day 4 and 5 I was pumping 1 oz to 2 oz. My attitude started to change an I felt more positive. Day 4 we stopped supplementing with formula and used exclusively breast milk instead. Once again my son kept doing better and better with each feed! His nurses believe my milk is what healed him.

After a 24 hour watch after the IV came out were doing well on our own. On 9/12 my baby was discharged and we finally got to take him home.

As I write this my beautiful little guy is sleeping on my lap after nursing. When I feel discouraged about breastfeeding because my nipple ache and all I want to do is sleep, I remind myself how far we've come and how my milk is so beneficial to this child I prayed for.

Our amazing bodies create this liquid gold to nourish our babies growing bodies and it's good to remind ourselves how awesome that is.

I'm hoping that this can inspire any other moms out there that might be having the same struggles.