Supply issues and using a pump

Milk to go for Addie.

This post is more focused on the fact that I really need your positive thoughts, and prayers.

I’ve been struggling over the past week or more with several health problems. First it started with my going to the hospital because it felt like I was in labor all over again. Not fun. My biggest fear was that I might have some placenta left, and would need surgery. I had an ultrasound and it was determined that if there had been any left my body had passed it thanks to all the contractions I had dealt with again. To be safe though, and make sure I didn’t have an infection I was placed on a round of antibiotics. This in turned started a crazy cycle Addie and I have been on. Poor Addie got a wicked diaper rash. We started her on probiotics, had several doctors visits to get different medicated creams to try with her, nothing was helping the poor girl. Finally we switched to one store bought cream, and its cleared up. We were to be hit again though with thrush. We are still working on clearing that up. Now though, I have been hit with a majorly clogged milk duct. Not fun. The whole time, I’ve been praying it doesn’t turn into mastitis. I’ve been doing everything I can to prevent that and thankfully that is now starting to clear up. I did not want it to become mastitis because that would mean another round of antibiotics, and well you can figure out just which part of the cycle we’d end up at again.

Sadly with all of this my milk supply has drastically decreased. While many say “oh your pumping out put means nothing….” blah, blah, blah. Don’t ever tell me that please because for me it is the opposite. For me my pumping out put means everything. It means my child is getting some breast milk. Whatever I pump is what she is getting. I can only nurse on one side thanks to the mass I had in my right breast, and then needing surgery. Things just aren’t the prime situation for making milk a lot of milk on my right side, and for nursing. It sucks, it really does, because it affects my daughter being able to nurse. The one thing I was able to do with Evie when she was born, and I was hoping to be able to do this time, was pump almost exclusively. It was crazy how much milk I could pump, over 8oz on my left and a bit on my right. 

With everything I’ve gone through recently, I am lucky right now if I can pump 1/2 oz to 1 full oz in total. I am so not happy about it. I have already been doing everything I can to increase my supply… fenugreek, blessed thistle, mother’s milk tea, power pumping, lactation cookies and smoothies. Nothing is helping. At one point with Evie I did end up on medication for a bit to help increase my supply again, but a side effect of that is weight gain. I gained back all the baby weight while on it. I was also not happy because I got headaches from it almost daily. I really do not want to have to go the medication route again. 

While it may seem odd to others, I’d really appreciate your thoughts and prayers. I so want to be able to exclusively pump this time round, but at this point I’d be happy if I could pump 5oz again. I really am not ready to surrender on pumping just year. If you’ve got any other tricks to increase supply please let me know!

My trusty pump that has been coming with me everywhere.

I used to be able to pump at least 5oz each time.