Struggled But Beautiful Journey of Pregnancy & Breastfeeding
Got married on feb 9th 2019 and enjoying my life unknowing the facts of actual pregnancy issues at all. And here comes that day where i faced issues from 2 mnths before i got conceived. I had severe vomiting’s and gastritis problem due to harmonal changes. I tested with home kit and came out positive on july 20th. We went for scanning but there is no heart beat. My doc doubted it might be a ectopic pregnancy and i shattered learning about that, she runed few tests and it was not ectopic.
And on aug 6 i was confirmed that i am pregnant with 6 weeks. Went to checkup and everything was fine. All my checkups during pregnancy were fine and baby is doing superfine except me. I had severe nausea throughout my pregnancy. I had spent nearly 8 mnths of my pregnancy time by puking the food i had. No food cravings instead i had food aversions. Everything was going good and i planned to have a normal vaginal birth, god and nature had another plans and lockdown started just before 4 days of my delivery.
On Mar 27th mid night i had contractions like any other day and I thought those were Braxton hicks and fell asleep without knowing that my labour pains started. On the next day morning i observed spotting and called doctor, they asked me to come to hospital. As it was peak situation with corona cases, no body was allowed with me for checkup. When i went inside, doc checked and said i was 1 cm dilated.
I was super happy to listen it, but here comes the twist, doc suggested to opt for C-section as it was lockdown therefore staff and anesthesia doc may not be available at night in emergency cases as well. As it takes 12 hrs to dilate completely and there are chances of complications(in general) doc suggested and left the desicion to us.
As it was lockdown only me, my mom and hubby were there. We spoke with family members and opted c-section to avoid any other emergencies because of lockdown. As usual I am happy to see my baby in few hours and expecting to have a baby girl. At 2:26 pm i heard my baby cry and doc said it was a baby boy..i am not so happy as it was a boy.. but i am happy baby is healthy and born with 2.85kgs inspite of heavy nausea for 9 months from the date i concieve.
After two hours of operation, i came into conscious and pain was unbearable. I felt like i am dying inside. Unable to feed baby and hardly i look at him. There we fell in the trap of bottle feeding. As he is drinking enough and i am not able to feed we continued feeding bottle. For the first 11 days, i woke up and slept with the help of my husband. After that i felt little bit okay and struggles of breastfeeding starts..
I know various stories of breastfeeding and it looked so simple and easy. Just feed your baby when he/she is hungry, but I myself came to know that there are many difficulties in breastfeeding ,right from the production of milk.
As I undergone C-section and the pain lasted for 11 days. Couldn’t be able to wake up from bed on my own. I am unable to hold my baby too and there started “my struggles of breastfeeding”. After 11 days when i was able to hold him,tried giving my breast and he has refused. I was said by everyone around me like it will take few days to get improvement but it took 3 and half months to get complete change from formula to breastfeed. When he was ready to drink breast milk, unfortunately I was not having enough production and he refuses when there is a sufficient production of breast milk.
I have cried my lungs out while seeing him struggle between formula and my breast. Pumping,proper diet and few medications has helped me a lot in regaining my milk production.It took all the way around 4 long months of time and now I’m good enough to have breastfeed to my baby. He is in his 20th month now and he is very fond of having the breastfeed.
I even suffered from frequent engorged breast,blisters and nipple cracks in the first year of breastfeeding journey. The pain was intolerable while I was feeding him. Warm water massage, continuous support from my partner, priceless love from my little one were helped me a lot to overcome these obstacles. Now we are happily enjoying our breastfeeding journey anywhere and anytime.
To all the mommies out there, we are having a great power of feeding our babies in the intial stages of their life. Never ever give up and don’t get demotivated. You all can definitely do this as I am saying you out of my experience and wisdom.
Wishing you all Overwhelming love and power.
