Our Ongoing Saga

To say that breastfeeding has not been easy would be the biggest understatement of my life. Helena started life sucking on her tongue, so she received most of her nutrition the first week of her life through finger-feeding.

Little Lena Finger-Feeding

During that time I was also nursing with a shield, which meant that her second week of life was spent weaning her off the shield. Thankfully she was able to wean off of it fairly easily, which is the opposite of the warnings in all the books.

Then the torture began, but I thought it was just me getting used to nursing. After a week and a half of it, I was walking away from my hungry daughter due to my fear of the pain.

With research, we discovered I was suffering from Raynaud's Phenomenon caused by breastfeeding. Think 24/7 burning. Started taking meds and the pain while not nursing began to decrease. We also learned she had a tight tongue, so we chose to have it released. A horrible thing to experience with your babe, but the pain during nursing began to decrease.

A tongue-tied baby's mouth

Things were going so well until two nights ago. The pain started to begin again and got stronger through the day. Then last night Helena absolutely would not latch.

Despite of this, I am blessed:
-to be surrounded with nursing resources. It's amazing to think Helena & I have spent four hours with lactation consultants working on breastfeeding and not spent a dime.
-to be in Toronto where the famous Jack Newman Breastfeeding Clinic is located, that they were able to see us so quickly, and that they released her tongue. [Their website is a great resource!]
-to have a sister-in-law who lent me an electric pump.
-to have two parents who have not only been praying for me non-stop for a few weeks now but also who have spent hours on Skype with me as I bawled about the pain, my feelings of failure, and my fears.
-to have a baby who is growing healthily despite all the complications with her food.
-to have a wonderful husband who set aside his homework and own personal desires during his reading break and focused every moment of it on breastfeeding.


Who knows what will happen today...I'm not looking forward to finding out. But I can say that I am incredibly blessed.