Jacquelynne's Breastfeeding Story
Our story this week comes from Jacquelynne. As a mother of 4, she has had some very interesting experiences breastfeeding her babies!
My name is Jacquelynne, and I’m a mother of 4, wife, registered nurse, and major lactation enthusiast. My story starts as a familiar one of “that mom” who took ALL the prenatal classes that I could. I remember sitting in my breastfeeding class thinking “How hard could this be?”. I had that assumption that breastfeeding was instinctual. It was not until my fourth baby that I finally learned that breastfeeding, while natural, is not “instinctual” and that is one of my biggest points to teach new moms about their journey.
My first son Logan was born at 38 weeks, and after a long and stressful birth he was taken to the nicu after delivery. Right there in that moment was a bit of grief, when that picture perfect birth turns into a scenario you did not plan for at all. But no time to mourn, because I had a baby to feed! As soon as I was physically able to walk after the epidural wore off, I went to the nicu. I started pumping and was immediately alarmed at how little seemed to be coming out because I knew nothing about pumping for a few hours old baby. I didn’t know that my output wasn’t low or abnormal but the nicu nurses at this facility were very quick to try and push formula. Luckily my husband and I were firm that we wanted to breastfeed. By the time Logan was cleared to start doing skin to skin and try breastfeeding, I was already so stressed. He immediately had difficulty latching and I was crushed and felt like a failure. I don’t remember her name now, but the lactation counselor at this hospital was an angel. She worked with us, hooked us up with a hospital grade pump, and poured her faith into my ability to succeed. It took a lot of practice and trying different positions that literally turned our whole experience around. Who knew that something as minor as changing to a different hold would change our path? Ultimately Logan was able to latch perfectly when held in the football hold, which I would have never thought of because when you think breastfeeding as a newbie you think of the traditional cross hold. In the meantime, my milk supply came in, and came in strong, in fact I had an oversupply which made me so excited after being so worried. Logan was in the nicu just 1 week, and during the nights that we were home I would set alarms and pump religiously every 2 hours, and my husband would drive up with our gold and deliver it to the nicu. By 3 weeks old, he was a pro, and exclusively nursed until almost a year. I was so proud of myself for not giving up. Breastfeeding showed me a lot about myself with my first and gave me my first bit of confidence that I so badly needed.
My second child, Lorelei was born just 15 months after Logan!! This child was the only child out of my 4 that was absolutely a dream to nurse. Labor and delivery was perfect (what an impact this makes). It was a totally different experience, and she latched and gained weight like the overachiever she remains today at 7 years old. With Lorelei I did end up exclusively pumping because I returned to the workforce when she was 6 weeks old. I did not know then how to balance breastfeeding and pumping simultaneously and it resulted in her preferring the bottle over the breast. So there my stubborn self was pumping around the clock. The biggest take away from this experience was entering a workforce that did not support breastfeeding, challenging the system and paving the way for working moms in my place of work. Shortly after my return to work, I learned that there was no designated place for moms to express milk for their babies and I was infuriated. I had to come up with some creative solutions, none of which made me feel comfortable. After challenging human resources, they created the first lactation room, and I felt so invigorated and motivated to help moms achieve their pumping and nursing goals. I stopped pumping for her at 7 months when I became pregnant with her twin brothers. Unfortunately, the boys were not meant to be earthside, and I had so looked forward to what my breastfeeding journey would look like with them. The only saving grace was that I had so much frozen milk that Lorelei used her stash until she transitioned fully to cow’s milk.
After a long path of healing, sudden infertility, and one lucky round of IVF our rainbow baby Lennox was born! Although in most ways Lennox was also pretty great at nursing, he suffered from jaundice at birth, pushing 8 lb 15oz made him a big baby and more susceptible. I struggled immensely when the nurse recommended that we use formula to help him clear the jaundice more quickly. I remember crying, and her saying right now formula is a medication, and with that I caved and gave him that one bottle. The struggle that continued was getting this jaundiced sleepy little light saber of mine to nurse. He just was so, so sleepy from the jaundice. We had to set timers on our phones, strip him down to a diaper and wipe him with a wipe to get him to eat. And then boom!!! He was off to the races. I noticed quickly after his birth that I wasn’t doing so well though, I struggled with severe dizziness. After visiting with my doctors and lab work, my doctor was concerned that my kidney cancer may have come out of remission. I was kind of a mess. During this time, I had to have CT scans and nuclear imaging trying to rule out or confirm this possibility. Not only was I an emotional mess, but with each test I was told that I had to pump and dump. What was hard was that these employees were often unsure of how long to pump and dump so I felt so frustrated and worried about his ability to continue nursing. There was one nuclear imaging test I had done that I was told I could not even hold Lennox, and it was crushing. Finally, all the tests continued to come back clear of cancer and my dizziness finally resolved when Lennox was about 4 months old. How about this though, due to my health scare, I was able to stay home for 14 weeks with him instead of the 6 I got with my daughter, so when I returned to work, our breastfeeding was much more well established even despite all our glitches with tests. As a result, I breastfed Lennox until he was 15 months, and I was literally so proud of myself. I also managed to push my employer to create a second lactation room!!
After Lennox, the universe threw us a surprise pregnancy, and baby Legend was born during the pandemic. When you have had as many breastfeeding experiences as I have, you think to yourself, I’ve seen it all. That’s when the breastfeeding universe said “HOLD MY BEER MOMMA”. First of all, with each latch I felt excruciating pain, and I think I missed clues that his latch was off because the pain of latching after birth was so severe I could not even open my eyes or watch him. It was brutal and felt like labor all over again. I continued to experience severe cramping with his latch, and overall just pain. Once we took him for his first pediatric visit, the nurse said he had dropped weight, and I felt immediate panic. I knew supply was not an issue so I brought up how painful it was when he was latching. That day we discovered a tongue tie, and with a simple clip, and an easier latch I thought ok now we’re good to go. Then this baby of mine, broke out in the most disturbing rash I had ever seen to the point that the pediatrician said I should quit breastfeeding. However, through a second opinion with an allergy specialist, and eliminating dairy we were good to go…..almost. I noticed he just never quite seemed comfortable, and that’s when we discovered he had torticollis (kind of a head tilt to put it simple). So off to physical therapy we were!! I battled some thrush as well which I don’t think anything has made me closer to quitting breastfeeding than thrush. Now Legend is 14 months old and breastfeeding is finally “easy” with him. During this last year I took a lactation counselor course, with hopes to become certified, and be of service to moms who need support.
I never imagined 8 years ago that I would have so many different breastfeeding experiences. I look back often and wonder how I didn’t quit. There were many times where I just told myself to make it through one more day. These days, I love to provide education and useful advice to moms wanting to successfully breastfeed, work, pump, and meet whatever their goals are. I look forward to seeing what my future holds in the lactation world.
What do you think about Jacquelynne’s story? We love how each journey was unique! Thanks for sharing Jacquelynne!
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