Trigger warning/content: mention of still birth, nursing, pumping, C-section, jaundice and birth trauma 

Breastfeeding and bottle feeding are two different things, right? Well actually, it depends.

My journey to motherhood started in 2016, when we conceived identical twins. During my pregnancy I prepared to breastfeed my twins and was quite excited by the prospect. Sadly we lost our angels due to twin to twin transfusion syndrome and I gave birth to them at 20 weeks. I was given medication to stop my milk from coming in and that was the end of that journey. At the time I didn’t know about Memory Milk, but I’ll get back to that later.

Then we had our daughter in 2018 and after a rather dramatic birth and a few hiccups, I breastfed her until she was nearly three. So when we conceived our son after another miscarriage, I felt quite passionate about breastfeeding him and thought myself well prepared.

Funny how life likes to keep us on our toes.

After what happened with my daughter, I opted for an elective C-section and my boy was born happily at 39 weeks, no drama and I was so relieved and happy. We tried to latch right after birth and did so much skin to skin, it was magical. Now, my daughter had had a tongue tie and a very shallow latch our whole journey so I was determined to know better this time. My concerns about shallow latch, jaundice, and tongue tie were ignored and we were discharged from hospital on day three. The next day the community midwife came to see us and after weighing my son, told us he’d lost more than 10% of his birth weight and we needed to top up his feeds immediately. His jaundice levels had increased as well but not to the level that he’d get treatment yet. 

So there we were, triple feeding as it’s called. Trying to latch and feed him at the breast, then pumping as much milk as possible and bottle feeding him that, and then topping up with formula.

It was stressful to say the least. The next day the midwife measured his jaundice again, and the levels were up yet again but just short of the threshold to do blood tests. So on we went, pumping every three hours, topping up, and trying to feed away the jaundice. At that point my boy was so sleepy he’d not latch at all anymore. 

Then the next day his levels were past the point that the handy little machine the midwife had could test so his blood was sent in for testing. Two hours later we got a call, and were told to get to the hospital immediately. His bilirubin levels had increased to just short of where they would consider a blood transfusion. What a shock that was. So back to the hospital we went, my sweet little boy was put into an incubator with two blue lights and I was told not to take him out unless I really had to. Since he wasn’t awake to latch him, I was sitting in front of his incubator, pumping and crying. So much crying. Jaundice is common and thankfully the treatment is straight forward and non invasive but it’s still so very scary when your newborn needs treatment of any kind.

He responded well to treatment and I was pumping and pumping, but still needed formula to top up. After two days he had stabilised to the point that he was still jaundice but well enough to go back home. So home we went, triple feeding if he was awake enough and pumping, pumping, pumping.

It was hard and I started to look online for support and as it turns out, there’s something called exclusively pumping. 

Now, there are mum’s who chose to exclusively pump from the start, be it because they return to work soon, want to share feeding duty, etc. For me, even though I had breastfed before, I hadn’t heard of that before. 

We are four months down the line now, I’m still exclusively pumping as my son still struggles to latch even after having a tongue tie release.

Some days it’s hard, but seeing my son thrive is a big reward. Since I started pumping so soon after giving birth and religiously pumped every three hours for the first six weeks, I ended up with a healthy oversupply. 

When I gave birth to my daughter I had seen a poster up in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital about donating breast milk. I did donate three litres back then but with nursing directly, I never had a huge oversupply. It’s different this time, as I easily freeze 20 oz per day and had the opportunity to donate over thirty litres of breast milk to help babies and premies in Scotland.

What I wasn’t aware of when I had my twins in 2016 was the opportunity to donate breast milk after a loss. It’s called Memory Milk and helps some parents on the journey towards healing after a loss. 

I was aware of the benefits for my baby to get my milk, what I didn’t realise was the extent that donor breast milk helps premature or ill born babies benefit from as well. A friend of mine told me donating milk is just as life saving as donating blood so that’s really why I thought it would be good to bring more attention to the possibility of donating milk and exclusively pumping if direct breast feeding isn’t working or desired.

Living on a pumping schedule is hard but gives me a bit of routine, too. There’s always two sides of things but I found that even though the journey is very different to what I expected and I grieved for my direct nursing journey, I have since embraced the pumping journey and love seeing my little pumpling thrive.