My Exclusive Pumping Story, Part 1.

I want to preface this by saying that breastfeeding is breastfeeding, whether breastmilk comes straight from the tap or is expressed with a pump. I also want to say that FED is best, and I do not place judgement on moms who decide not to breastfeed, stop breastfeeding for any given reason (there’s lots of them!), or can’t breastfeed. My decision to breastfeed can be attributed to 1) ability, 2) preference, 3) cost of formula, and 4) privilege in terms of time and resources. Despite knowing I had a choice, I put a lot of pressure on myself to breastfeed. Maybe it was all of the biased nutrition courses I took to become a dietitian, but I somehow equated a successful breastfeeding relationship to being a good mom, even though that is so far from the truth. I remember watching a video in one of my classes of a baby naturally crawling its way to its mom’s breast after birth and deeply feeling how powerful that bond is between a mom and her baby. While most first time pregnant women worry about giving birth, I felt more anxious about breastfeeding. That was how brainwashed I was. It didn’t help that I set up expectations of a perfect breastfeeding experience - an experience I was not going to let go of easily.

When the moment came, I felt strangely underprepared. Sloane was laid upon my chest and it was time to try feeding her. Suddenly, all of the information in the prenatal courses I took throughout my pregnancy vanished. I tried to position her in the way the courses recommended, but she wasn’t latching. I didn’t know what to do, I thought she would just grab on and go! I asked the nurse for help, but she couldn’t get Sloane to latch either. I distinctly remember the nurse saying “wow, she’s an eager little girl!”. She was eagerly opening her mouth to feed, but closing her mouth just before grabbing onto the nipple. I felt a heavy dread wash over me, as if all of my fears were coming true. Over the next couple of days in the hospital I was visited by two different lactation consultants who were very knowledgeable and supportive, and helped get Sloane to latch and feed correctly. I felt hopeful, but soon after we returned home as a family things started to fall apart.

My first moments with my girl. I was adamant that we received skin-to-skin time immediately after birth because I knew it was associated with an improved breastfeeding relationship.

I fed Sloane constantly, yet she still seemed hungry. To make matters worse, our A/C went out the day after we came home and with it being September in Southern California, it was the hottest time of the year. My poor girl seemed hot and lethargic falling asleep at the breast, but being a first time mom I figured that was expected with a newborn. In the middle of the night before her three day check-up with the pediatrician, everything came to a head. Sloane was inconsolable, wailing at the top of her lungs in a way that any parent or non-parent would recognize that something was very, very wrong. My husband and I stared wide-eyed at each other in pure fear over not knowing what to do - a stare that I’m sure many first-time parents can relate to. My instinct was that she was hungry, but I was confused because I had been feeding her non-stop. My milk hadn’t come in at that point yet, though, so it was difficult to tell when or if she was getting anything. In a last-ditch effort, I dug through our cabinets for a formula container that I had received as a sample for signing up with a baby registry website. Yep, I was so convinced breastfeeding would work for us that I didn’t even buy a back-up can of formula.

The instant my husband put the bottle to Sloane’s lips, she stopped crying. She sucked that bottle down so quickly and eagerly that I immediately broke down in tears out of guilt that I didn’t realize what my daughter needed. Even though I felt a sense of relief that we figured out the problem, I started to then worry about giving formula so early on in her life. In the morning, I received a follow-up call from one of the lactation consultants that had helped me in the hospital. I was hesitant to tell her what happened, but she could tell from my voice that something was wrong. I broke down as I told her about giving the formula; I was deeply ashamed. Thankfully she quickly reassured me that I had made the right decision as Sloane was clearly hungry and formula was the best way to feed her until I figured out our latch issues. I felt better until I received the second gut-punch of the day at our pediatrician’s office. Sloane had lost a significant amount of her birth weight and was dehydrated to the point where she had “brick dust” present in her diaper. The pediatrician told me to continue giving her formula and scheduled an appointment the following day to check on her weight. Luckily, we received good news the next day that she had gained enough weight back for it to no longer be of concern. I scheduled an appointment with another lactation consultant associated with our hospital, and in the meantime started using my pump to maintain my supply as I continued trying to latch Sloane.

One of my first pumping sessions with the Elvie pumps. My milk was in transition from colostrum to mature milk. I was so excited to get the Elvies since they are portable and hands-free, but I ended up having a love-hate relationship with them because they were so finicky.

At my appointment with the lactation consultant, Sloane was a superstar. She latched great on both sides, transferred milk well, and didn’t appear to have any major tongue tie issues that the consultant could see. I felt confused, but also hopeful that our issues were behind us. The following week, however, we continued to struggle. If I could manage to get a good latch, it would only last a few minutes before Sloane would pop off for reasons I couldn’t figure out. I practically lived on Google and YouTube trying to find the right answer. Was my let-down too strong? Was I not positioning her right? Did she have a tongue or lip tie? Why was she beating at my chest and crying out what seemed like frustration? I didn’t feel comfortable asking or going back to the lactation consultant I had recently seen because for one, she didn’t see anything wrong at our appointment, and she also wasn’t very supportive following our initial session. Thus, I wasn’t sure who to reach out to at that point. I started to do research on exclusive pumping since I felt like giving Sloane my expressed milk in a bottle felt easier than latching, but at the same time I wasn’t ready to give up on the special connection and idea of latching. I decided to try one more lactation consultant, someone I knew and trusted from my dietetic internship. She assessed the situation and recommended I reach out to a tongue tie specialist because she was pretty sure that was part of the problem, along with an oversupply I’d created through pumping.

Fixing my oversupply required using hand expression (which I always struggled with) and reducing the amount of time I was pumping. I experienced a lot of clogging when I attempted this solution, and psychologically it was difficult for me to purposely reduce the amount of milk I was producing. I had established a good supply and was able to freeze a large stash of milk to use when I decided to stop breastfeeding, and diminishing my output felt like the opposite of what I should be doing at 3 months postpartum. Around this same time, we took Sloane to the tongue tie specialist who confirmed she had a tongue tie and recommended a release. We scheduled an appointment for after Thanksgiving and I continued to triple feed Sloane - attempting to latch her, pumping when that failed, and then feeding her expressed milk. The whole ordeal would sometimes take 45 min to an hour, every 3 hours if not sooner.

Triple feeding in all of its glory - postpartum underwear and all. Looking back, this was the easiest it would ever be to pump while entertaining a baby!

Not only was Sloane having trouble latching, but our pediatrician suspected that she had a dairy intolerance from her bowel habits and colicky behavior. I didn’t know if she would even be able to use the stash of frozen milk I had worked so hard for, and I felt like I was poisoning her every time I gave her my breastmilk. I removed what little dairy I had left in my diet (I’m lactose intolerant myself), but her GI issues and behavior didn’t seem to improve. The tongue tie specialist recommended I remove other potential allergens from my diet based on patients with similar problems she had worked with. I did research and didn’t find much evidence to support removing food groups to improve the digestibility of breastmilk, but I was so desperate I experimented with an elimination diet to remove common allergens such as eggs, peanuts, and wheat. I am a self-proclaimed anti-diet dietitian and I went on a diet! As a mom, I had to exhaust all options to try to help my baby. I didn’t last long on the diet (because diets don’t work! ha), but it didn’t seem to help anyway. I was miserably confused, questioning if I was even doing the right thing giving Sloane breastmilk since all signs seemed to point towards no.

On Thanksgiving, I sat in the back room of my in-laws house and attempted to latch Sloane. She was fussy per usual, but we actually had a successful breastfeeding session (we had so few I can count them on both hands). Despite it being successful, I remember savoring that moment because I had a gut feeling that it would be one of our last, and I was right. Sloane’s tongue tie release was traumatizing - the actual procedure went smoothly, but doing the stretches afterward to prevent it from reattaching was horrendous. Every 4 hours we had to force our fingers into her mouth to stretch the frenulum, which usually caused her to cry on top of all of the crying she was already doing. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back in my breastfeeding journey; I couldn’t handle the stress of trying to latch her, care for her wounds, and solo parent half the time. In a time of endless unknowns, I needed the stability of a pumping schedule and a plan to stick to. I finally made the decision to stop trying to latch her and exclusively pump, and although it seems ridiculous to pump and immediately feed that milk to your baby using a bottle, it was the best solution for me and my family.

In the second part of this post, I’ll go over exclusive pumping specifics including the schedules I followed, the weaning process, and tips and tricks. Stay tuned!