Refections of the First Month with Julia

             We have been so happy to have our precious little girl. This first month with Julia has been so amazing and hard all at the same time. It has been so amazing because we finally have our little girl when it has taken us over 18 months to conceive her. During those 18 months we had gone to see our family doctor, fertility specialist, blood testing, other tests for both of us and had to go through a miscarriage. All the while, friends and family around us were  getting pregnant and having babies. It was really hard because we were happy for them but so incredibly sad for ourselves that we haven't been able to experience this kind of joy. But now that she is here and we are over the moon ecstatic to have her in our lives.
             This month has also had big challenges for us. When Julia was born she had a bit of a tongue tie which is where the frenum that is under the tongue was closer to the tip of her tongue which prevented her from being able to stick out her tongue. This caused her to not be able to latch onto the breast to eat. If this has never happened to you with your baby, count your blessings, it definitely  doesn't allow for a less bumpy ride into motherhood. So since Julia was not able to latch we stayed in the hospital for three days to wait for a doctor that could snip the frenum (supposedly there is no nerve endings so it doesn't hurt her) While in the hospital I still had colostrum because your milk supply doesn't usually start to show up until the third to fifth day after baby is born. This meant I had to hand express my colostrum to feed it to Julia, that meant every three hours I would have to hand express ( this could take me 30 to 60 minutes to try and get as much as I could out). I was also starting to try to use the hospital grade medela pump except they didn't have the right size shield for me so that wasn't working so great. However in between all of this I got to have the best cuddles of my life with her.
             Once we got home the craziness only continued. Matt was able to rent a hospital grade pump for me to help get my milk supply up and be able to express my milk easily to feed her in a bottle since latching was still something we were working on. This is how it went for the first week,
I would pump before Julia was ready to eat for 10 minutes on each side, collect as much milk as I could from that and then when it was time to feed her. I would first feed Julia what I had pumped then supplement the rest with formula. Then after seeing the Lactation Consultant Nurses during the first and second week, we tried to get the latching on the breast down but couldn't do it bare breast so we introduced the nipple shield (finicky little buggers). At first Julia was not so keen on them but we worked at it and eventually she did latch. We still didn't have her fully breast fed yet even with the shield. We also were still on the every three hour feeds even through the night. That meant that I would try to feed Julia on the breast with the nipple shield first, see if she would latch properly and for how long before she got frustrated. Then we would switch to what I had pumped out earlier, if that wasn't enough we would supplement with formula. During the third week we no longer had to do feedings every three hours since Julia had gained a pound in a week and this was mostly all with just breast milk (some of the breast milk was fed through bottle) the odd time we did have to top you up with a little bit of formula. This week too was when I was told I can stop pumping now because I would pump for only 2 minutes on each side and get any where from 150ml to 200ml. So my milk supply was definitely in.
             The fourth week well we were all breast fed now but still using the shield for most feeds there were a few times a day where we were able to do a fed or two with no shield at all. Yay progress. However one night we had to give Julia formula again because I just ran out of milk. Also  we were not using a pacifier at this time either because I really wanted to make sure breast feeding was down pat. So as the weeks had gone on in this month I was slowly starting to get a little bit more sleep. For me I really did not get much sleep at the beginning as you could imagine with the pumping and different steps with trying to feed. But it was well worth it, I said to myself at the beginning if I had to pump in order to feed Julia breast milk I would do it with out a doubt, I would not give up. But ideally I wanted to be able to breast feed her not only for the convenience but for that special connection and bond with her.
              Your whole world truly does change when you have a baby but it changes for the absolute best. Even when she cries and your trying to figure out what it is, I love it and I am so happy to have my baby girl!

Here are some pictures of Julia in her first month of life (outside the womb that is)