Feeling Positive

This is what nursing looks like with the Lact-aid. 

This morning when I woke up, my boob was leaking! For most people, this wouldn't be cause for celebration, but it hasn't happened to me for a while. She nursed this morning, then I pumped 1.5 oz (0.5 from the side she'd nursed on and 1 oz from the other side). That's more than usual. I'm hoping it means that milk production is on an upswing. We've done some really quality nursing with the Lact-aid in the past couple of days. Sterling suckles really well for much longer than she used to because she actually gets milk out. It's a little bit fiddly to use; I keep having to adjust it because when she moves her mouth she sometimes moves the tube to a place where she can't suck milk through it anymore. She's much more effective at milk removal from the breast, though. I'm not sure if it's because she's suckling longer or if she's actually more efficient now that her tongue and lip have been snipped, but if I pump shortly after she's nursed I don't usually get much out. I used to pretty consistently pump about 0.5 oz after she'd finished.

Mike and Sterling reading together this morning.
Not related to nursing, but much cuter than
what I'm talking about in this paragraph.

I'm choosing to not look at the other possibility - that nothing has changed. It had been quite a few hours since she'd last nursed from the boob that was leaking this morning, so it's possible that it had longer to fill up than it normally does. For a couple of days after the first appointment with the LC, the amount of supplement she was taking went down by about 3 oz. That doesn't sound like much, but really it's one whole extra feeding that I was producing (or that she just wasn't eating). The last two days, it's been back up. I think that might be because she enjoys nursing more than she enjoys the bottle, so she'll just drink more that way. And it's possible that I'm not pumping anything after she nurses because production has actually gone down.. but I'm choosing to not focus on any of the things in this paragraph.

Follow-up with the Lactation Consultant

We saw the LC again today and she says that Sterling's lip and tongue look great. We learned how to do some stretches to keep them from healing back together again, as well as some exercises to get her tongue all trained up for expert nursing. Mike just called them suckercises.

Note: not my boob or baby.

I also got a Lact-Aid Supplemental Nurser. It's basically a bag for milk storage with a tube that goes out to the nipple. It's kind of like a baby straw. I can thread the tube into her mouth when she's nursing and she can suck the supplemental milk at the same time. It motivates her to keep nursing longer, which should stimulate my supply to increase (as much as it's going to). We also get special bonding nursing time.

She slurped up a bag of milk about an hour and a half ago, then fell asleep on my chest. I know I should put her down in her swing and go get something done... but she's so warm and cozy.

Tongue Tie Resolution

We just got home from having Sterling's tongue and lip ties snipped. The Dr was very nice. He examined her, then numbed her lip and under-tongue area with cherry flavored topical numbing stuff, then we chatted for a while and he explained exactly what he was going to do. His two assistants came in and one held her head and the other held down her arms, then he numbed the area with ice and then again with the numbing stuff. The lip snip looked gorier to me (I watched, but couldn't bring myself to actually participate by holding her down), but I couldn't really see the tongue snip. She bled into some gauze and cried vigorously for what seemed to be a really long time (but was probably a minute or two), then they handed her to me to nurse. She cried and bled onto my boob for another really long time (5 minutes maybe?) then settled down and nursed a little bit. She had a bottle and by the time that was finished, she seemed to have forgotten about the whole experience (except for a bit of bloody drool smeared on her cheeks).

I didn't notice a huge, amazing difference with her first nursing. Her tongue felt like it was doing the same thing it usually does (i.e. rub on my nipple somewhat painfully) and my nipple was its usual misshapen self after she was done. Her lip did flange out (like a goldfish) on its own without me having to pull it out, which has never happened before, so that's positive.

She's having a nap in her swing and I'm sitting her, also exhausted. We go back to see the lactation consultant tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see what she says then. Tonight, I get to cool down my finger with ice water, then run it up under her lip and under her tongue to keep it from healing back together.

Grabbing!

Sterling has advanced past hitting things into grabbing. She's gotten quite adept at grabbing her hanging ball. Recently, she's even gotten enough pull that she can turn on the musical bug that we've attached the ball to. It plays "if you're happy and you know it," which is now perpetually stuck in my head.

She hasn't gotten to the point where she'll grab at something that we offer to her, but I'm sure that's not far off now.

She's also developed an interest in wringing her hands, folding them in front of her chest, and chewing on them. She can nearly fit an entire fist into her mouth.

This is what I take in a day

This is the schedule of supplements that the lactation consultant recommended:

• Domperidone - 30mg capsules 4 x day
• Motherlove milk plus (ordered from amazon) - 1-2 capsules 3 x day
• Malunggay 350mg 2 capsules 3 x day
• Shatavari 400mg 1 capsule 3 x day
• custom lactation blend tincture - 2-3ml 3+ x day:
• contains: goats rue, fennel, fenugreek, blessed thistle, shatavari, lactva virosa, vitex, schisanda, yellowdock, saw palmetto, milk thistle, borage, nettle

So first thing in the morning, I take allergy medication (2 pills), then 5 or 6 capsules, and several droppers-full of tincture (which tastes pretty vile). Then at noon, I take a second domperidone capsule and another couple droppers full of tincture. At 3pm, I take various capsules and more tincture. About 6, I take another domperidone. Last thing (11 or 12), I take more allergy medication (2 more pills), 5 or 6 capsules, and more tincture. 

Here's what it all looks like.  I put the pills out in two tiny dishes  because they all sort of look similar: full of brown herby things.

I've been trying to pump at least twice a day and ideally more like 4 times. It's difficult to time because I don't want to pump right before Sterling wants to eat, but it's hard to determine exactly when she's going to want to eat. It's easier with the supplemental nursing tube since she's going to suck all the pumped milk while she's at the breast. 

When I'm going to be out of the house in the middle of the day, I leave with my pockets stuffed full of pills.

It makes my pee smell like I've eaten asparagus.

Hitting things

Stuff other than nursing issues is happening with the baby. She's really getting into batting at things with her hands and she can grab at her ball now and catch it fairly regularly. She spending a lot more time interacting with her hanging toys by trying to hit at them. She's doing an awesome job.

Lactation Consultant

We went to see a lactation consultant yesterday (Melissa Cole at Luna Lactation). She was fabulous and I wish we'd gone to see her right after Sterling was born. Here's what we got out of the meeting:

She agrees with me that Sterling has a tongue and lip tie. These are tissues that are supposed to have disappeared during development, but never did. She's the first medical professional that I've seen who actually agrees with me. I've thought Sterling had these issues since shortly after she was born (after I figured out that those were things that could affect nursing). I was certain that she had a lip tie, which is pretty easy to see (below):

Here's Sterling's lip tie (it's hard to get a picture of it because she moves).

She thinks that Sterling's lip tie is probably between a class III and IV.

I also thought that she had a tongue tie due to the way the end of her tongue looks and the fact that she "clicks" when she nurses (which is apparently the sound that babies make when they break suction due to the tongue not cupping correctly). Dr Liz said her tongue frenulum was sort of tight, but didn't think it would make that much of a difference nursing. Maybe it doesn't, but maybe it does. I haven't been able to get a picture of this because it's pretty far back. We're going to go talk to an ENT doctor about this and hopefully get her tongue tie cut (which is apparently not as traumatic as it sounds for a baby).


Melissa helped me optimize the herbs and things that I'm taking to try to increase milk production. She made me up a custom tincture to take along with the things that I'm taking now.


She gave me a feeding tube thing to use as a supplemental nursing system at the breast. One end of the tiny little tube goes into a bottle and the other end gets slid into the corner of baby's mouth while she's nursing. The suction she creates sucks milk through the tube from the bottle. We had tried a "starter SNS" supplemental nurser when Sterling was about a week old (maybe less). It was sort of fiddly and hard to deal with. It leaked and had to be attached to something at the same level as baby's head so it drained at the right speed. It was a pain and we gave it up after trying a couple of times. This works much better.. or I'm not so overwhelmed by everything else and just seems to work better. I like this. It makes me feel like my breastfeeding is accomplishing something because she gets to nurse AND she gets enough milk. It's also good for strengthening her sucking muscles. 


Overall, it was a very positive experience. We were there for about 2.5 hours and I'm going to recommend her to anyone I encounter who's having trouble with breastfeeding.