Saturday, March 21, 2009

When is it supposed to get easier???

We have had a rough week at the Rellinger household in State College. Rece and I are having major issues with breastfeeding and to make matters worse we are now tracing back some of the issues all the way to my labor/delivery. Rece has been in a lot of pain with gas, his bowel movements are horrible and he started refluxing this week leading to a prescription to relive the pain in his esophagus. We are also finding we have multiple causes/issues to address. Because I was leaking fluid and was induced I was on Antibiotics for 24 hours during my labor, then a week after I came home I was on antibiotics for a week due to a clogged duct. All of this apparently severely impacted the good bacteria in Rece's system. SO now that is contributing to his horrible digestion. So now I have to give him infant probotics 3 times a day to help build his natural bacteria back up. Also contributing to his gassiness is that I am apparently Hyper Lactating - the lactation consultant said that I am producing enough for twins - lucky me. This of course means that he is getting only the watery fore milk at his feedings which is probably the #1 cause of his horrible gassiness etc. because of the quick way it forces itself through his digestive tract. It also leads him to want to nurse all the time because he isn't getting satisfied, when he isn't satisfied he doesn't sleep, when he doesn't sleep I don't sleep, when I don't sleep I want to scream....good times. The hyperlactation also means that the milk basically floods him which makes him gag and choke and now he is starting to refuse to nurse because between that and the gas he has all the time, he is in pain when he feeds. With all of this I am now managing about 5 different solutions to all of these issues that will "start to help" in anywhere between 3-10 days depending on the "solution" and the issue we are trying to solve. OH! And in the meantime I am not eating dairy so that I don't make the gassiness worse. Not eating dairy really sucks. The timeline on my breastfeeding days may be numbered if we can't get things figured out for him soon...I don't feel that either of us are benefiting at this point...

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

Chass, I want to e-mail you about the forceful letdown thing. I will give you my email on Facebook. I am sorry you are dealing with that!

Erica said...

Chassidy, I know this may not be feasible because when babies want to eat they want to eat. But have the doctors suggested maybe pumping a little bit to get past some of the foremilk to the more fatty satisfying milk? Sorry that's just an idea. I am sorry that things are not going as planned. If you need anything please let me know. I hope things start getting better! And hang in there, you are doing a great job! Talk to you soon.