I'm a WEANER! (LONG)

spainy17 · May 2014

I think we have weaned, ladies. It is super bittersweet. DD last nursed four days ago.

Our story was crazy and yet I look back on it with just so much love.

We started off with a bang and I made oodles of milk. Then the trouble started. I had super fast letdown and it ended up being both a blessing and a curse. For a while it masked my DD's sucking issues since she basically just tried to stay latched and the milk just came out. But she had trouble keeping up and had all kinds of gas issues. She aspirated on the gas drops and I remember thinking it was weird but just figured she didn't like them.

Then the reflux started and an ER trip later we started Zantac, Prevacid and then I went dairy and soy free. It was such a trying time, watching DD struggle and scream and I felt so helpless. During this time we had tried introducing bottles and she just gagged and choked and then screamed. It got so bad that she would just start screaming when she SAW a bottle. We went to the ped, a speech therapist, an ENT, a lactation consultant and a cranio sacral therapist. She was poked, prodded, scoped, etc. It was insane. We had no way to feed her if I was not there. She gagged on everything.

The lactation consultant was the one that noticed that she couldn't latch on the bottle right and the cranial sacral therapist was our savior. After months of biweekly "suck therapy" she was FINALLy able to suck on a bottle and nursing improved. We had gone almost five months with nearly hourly nursing sessions during the day since she constantly fell off the boob and could only handle tiny feedings at a time. We could only nurse in a dark room in one position. Feeding outside of the house were a joke because she would pop off so much and suck so much air that we paid for it later.

During the whole ordeal DD and I stuck it out and our stubborness saved her. She was big and thriving. It amazed every specialist we went to, and actually hurt us for a while because everyone kept telling us "you are doing great, she is big!" but it was the ENT that told me, "if you hadn't been so diligent with nursing she would have needed a feeding tube."

Now I look back and it is so hazy and to think it was just a few months ago blows my mind. DD and I got into a great rhythm and I loved nursing her at the end. Despite all of the crazy it was such an amazing experience and I cannot believe we made it this far. It has bonded us and I will never forget all that we went through together. It makes me teary even thinking about it, but I am so proud of my growing girl.