Breastfeeding Adam

I emailed you and received a response from you when my son underwent open-heart surgery in 2012. Before that I have a story and I will share it because it's worth reading and I like to share it, and I think it's educational. When I was growing up in a small town in Wisconsin my neighbor breastfed her third and last baby well past one year. I remember watching her nurse and marveling at the awesomeness of it. There was a woman a few blocks from me who gave piano lessons, I did not take them because we had no money and no piano, but I heard from kids who did that her child would walk up to her and ask to nurse. My mom's cousin had a baby she was nursing who could walk. The daycare my mother worked at when I was a teenager had mothers who pumped for their babies and though by Wisconsin law I could not pick those babies up because I was under 18 I could sit and feed them the bottles of their mother's milk if someone put the baby in my arms. I felt special doing so. The neighbor who breastfed had kids my age as well and we lived next door to one another from when I was four until high school graduation when I left for college. She was a big influence on me. Her daughter and I used to breastfeed our dolls. I had pretty big boobs, I was an average size girl but my bras were for Cs or Ds. Fast-forward to my first baby, I was a young 21-year old, married, living nine hours from home. I had flat nipples and asked my OB during my pregnancy what I should do to prepare for breastfeeding. He said to rub my nipples with a rough wash cloth when I showered to toughen them up for breastfeeding. (What bad advice as it could have triggered pre-term labor)! I did not do this. When my daughter was born she had a fever and I did not get to hold her for 50 minutes. When I did I just put her face to my breast and waited to see what she would do. Of course she cried. Shortly after the first time I got to hold her they took her to the NICU because she had that fever. The first 24 hours of her life are a blur, she is almost 17 now and so much has happened in my lfie since then... I went down to the NICU to try to nurse her a few times, I pumped when a nurse told me to a few times, after about 21 hours she was in my room with me and that is when I learned what a good hospital I was in. I had nurses and lactation consultants helping me get her to nurse. (I did not even know the term latch on then). They said I had inverted nipples (I had always known they were flat) and they kept trying to help me pull them out so my daughter could get a grip. I do not know how we did it, they sent me home with nipple shields to wear when she nursed but "Only for a couple weeks" they advised. They sent me home with breast shells to put in my bra to keep the fabric off my sore nipples. I can only say I was determined not to fail. To me, failure meant giving a bottle of the formula they sent home with me. It may have helped that my husband was from Syria, his mother had breastfed each of her five children for the 14 months that was standard in the 70s when she was having babies, in Syria. She was also a wet nurse for other babies, relatives and strangers. She came to stay with us when my daughter was a month old and she was very encouraging, showing me how to massage my breasts if they were sore, she speaking Arabic and me, English. I used those nipple shields for five months. I went back to work nights when she was three months old and pumped in an office at the telemarketing place where I worked. I went back to college nights when she was four months or five months old and pumped in the bathroom. Remember, this was 1997.... When my daughter was five months old we started baby foods, but started with plain yogurt as was common in her dad's culture. When she was eight months old I met another mom at a mom's group for nursing moms through the hospital where I delivered. She asked how long I planned to nurse. Of the people who have played a pivital role in my life, she is one. She is a big one. Having babysat and been around children my whole life, I LOVED children and still do. I knew bottles ended at one year. When I started nursing my first goal was three months, then six months, then a year. So when she asked me how long I was going to nurse, I said a year. She said, "You know you can nurse longer if you want. If your baby wants." LIFE CHANGING WORDS. My husband said 14 months was how long they nursed babies in Syria because then it was time to have another baby. He and I were in college though so no hurry to have another baby, this one had been unplanned. When she was 2 years and 6 months old her dad left us. She was still nursing, but she was sleeping in her own bed and I in mine. I brought her in with me. I went on to keep breastfeeding her, with no plan of when to stop. I lived in Omaha, Nebraska and one day driving I heard on the radio some folks talking about a woman in Iowa (just 15 minutes from Omaha) who had her son taken away because she was breastfeeding him and he was six years old. My daughter was almost four. I was divorced so it was always in the back of my mind, what if I lost her. I told her mommy's boobies would stop making milk when she turned four. She was four and two months when she was weaned. For months after she would give each breast a hug, a kiss, and a pat when she saw them. My first born is bright, she has always been bright, in gifted classes since third grade, and always healthy, always always the picture of health. We were in Kansas (my second husband being in the Air Force for 12 years, we moved a lot). when her school spent two weeks evaluating her. They came up with her IQ being 141. I know it's not only the four years of breastfeeding, but the kind of parenting that went with it. (That made her IQ so high, her body and mind so healthy and strong). The kind of parent I am, I have always called myself an Explanation Parent, I explain what I want, what I do not want, why you cannot do that, why you should do that. No hitting, no yelling, no time-out. (When my first daughter was 18 months old she had thrown her messy food from her high chair to the carpet twice and I gave her hand a gentle but significant slap and her dad told me not to hit her ever and I never did). As the years went by I learned of Dr. Sears and I realized the parenting I had done since 1997/1998 was categorized if need be, as Attachment Parenting. In 2004 my new husband and I had a baby girl at the same hospital as my first. She was breastfed until I became pregnant when she was about 2-years old. (I miscarried twice while nursing my first baby). I weaned her in a week. She breastfed a total of two years and one or two months. In 2007 in an Army hospital I had my third baby, she was my biggest, weighing 8 lbs 15 oz at birth. The military hospital is different than the civilian one in a myriad of ways... They said every time I wanted to feed her I had to call them first to take a test of her blood. (I don't think so!) I would start nursing her and call them, they were always mad and scolding that I had already started feeding her. I did not care. I fed all my babies on demand, as often as they wanted for as long as they wanted, whether they fell asleep or not. My third baby, also a girl, started sucking her fingers at a month of age, but she went on to nurse for 2 years and 7 months, my only baby to wean herself to that point. That made three babies in ten years, no formula and a total of 8 years and 11 months of breastfeeding. In 2011 I had my last baby, my only boy, I had become fully ensconced into crunchy parenting by then, so I left him intact, I nursed him on demand. But there was a glitch this time. During my pregnancy they said he had a "possible hole in his heart" and it would be looked at when he was born, before leaving the hospital. All three of my girls I went into labor on my own, labored at home longer as my pregnancies went along (laboring at home until 8 cm with a bulging bag of waters with my last) I had planned to labor outside with my last baby for as long as I could then go to the hospital. However, my husband got out of the Air Force and found a job in a new state and was scheduled to leave three days after my due date, so we decided to induce for fear of daddy missing the birth, for fear of holding off on starting the job and losing the much-needed job. My other three labors were 12-13 hours, my last and my induced labor was 6 hours. Never mind the labor, he was born, cord twice around his neck, I held him, I nursed him immediately (though not as fast as my second baby who I held before they cut the cord). The doctors listened to his heart and said it sounded fine. I did not even notice they did not look. I did not ask them to look. I was relieved. We left after one night. It took me no time at all to notice he was not waking to eat. It took me longer to realize he wasn't doing the Milk In Poop Out his sisters had done. I set the timer on my stove for every hours and woke up and woke him to nurse. I did not know his sleepiness was a sign of heart troubles. The first time we saw our Air Force pediatrician my son was one month old, it takes some time to get into the system and he'd seen civilian doctors before that. I told them all the story of my ultrasounds and they all said his heart sounded fine. Our doctor on base said yes, it heart sounded fine, but did I notice his breathing? I said I knew it was funny sometimes, but newborns sometimes breath funny. He said he wanted me to take him to a Pediatric Cardiologist before we moved. I said okay. Long story, shortened, because now I want to get off my computer and go get into bed with my three littles (they are now 9, 6, and 2 and all sleeping in the same bed upstairs). He had a big hole in the bottom (a VSD) and a smaller hole in the top (an ASD). We found out in October 2011, I was told to watch him carefully. My husband had moved already in September, due to money issues my four kids and I didn't follow him until November. We found a Pediatric Cardiologist right away in our new city. She put our baby on meds to make sure he didn't retain fluid. On December 23rd she said he would definitely need surgery to fix his heart so he did not suffer lung damage. On January 12, 2012 my son had open-heart surgery to patch the big hole and close the small hole. He went home four days later. No feeding tube, no formula, just one bottle with two ounces of pedialyte before I got ot nurse him for the first time after surgery. I objected to that bottle, but I was over-ruled. I pumped and froze over 30 ounces during the approximately 24 hours I could not nurse him. When we went to leave they had lost my milk, no matter, I had more. I nursed him about one day after he got out of surgery. four days later we went home. My son is two years and almost 3 months old. He nurses on demand, when he wants to nurse he says to me, "Do you want milk?" and I laugh and say, "Do you want milk?" and he laughs and nods and says, "Yeah!" I think he'll easily nurse for three years, maybe four, if more, then okay! No formula, four babies, eleven years total so far. It is all about support. Thank you, Dr. Newman, for touching lives by helping us do what is best for our babies our bodies, our families, our communities and our planet.

I posted this on the website of the hospital where I delivered my first two babies. I can never sing the praises for Methodist hospital enough! I had my first baby there in early 1997, I had a lot of trouble getting breastfeeding started but the nurses and lactation consultants were so wonderful, they helped me so much! I went on to nurse my first baby without any formula, a huge goal of mine! I read so often on breastfeeding pages on facebook about the struggles first-time moms have with breastfeeding and how the hospitals where they deliver are not helpful... It's very sad. I had my second baby at Methodist in 2004, because of my success in breastfeeding my first child I had a much easier time getting breastfeeding established the second time. Once again everyone who I came in contact with at Methodist was a gift to me. When my baby was 7-weeks old I found myself at Methodist having an emergency appendectomy. The lactation consultants provided me with a high quality pump and once I could nurse my baby again they let her stay with me until I went home so I could breastfeed her. I had my third baby at an Army hospital in 2007, a very different experience indeed. Due to the women who had helped me in 1997 I knew how to breastfeed and I went on to breastfeed my third baby without formula. I had my fourth and last baby at a hospital in Wichita, Kansas in 2011. My husband was in the Air Force so we had different experiences with doctors and hospitals in five states total. My fourth baby had a heart defect-three holes in his heart- I truly believe it was the guidance of the lactation consultants on February 27, 28, and March 1st of 1997 at Methodist/Childrens who gave me the gift of knowledge, I was able to exclusively breastfeed all four of my children, including my son who underwent open-heart surgery at Duke University Hospital in January 2012. Even he, small as he was, with three holes in his heart, was breastfed without formula, again, a goal of mine, that would not have been possible without the wonderful experience I had with my first baby. So I say, thank you Methodist, thank you to your nurses, thank you to your lactation consultants, thank you for truly caring about your patients, you are making a difference that lasts a life time and I will forever remember you and be thankful because you made a difference in my life and the lives of my children that I can never be thankful enough or find the right words to express.