As part of the treatment (or whatever the word would be in this case) for Jack’s Milk Protien Intolerance, we put him on a formula called Neocate.  I put a large amount of the credit for Jack having some Happy Baby time to this formula.  You’ve never heard of Neocate you say?  Well, not many kids are on it.  Most can go to some version of Enfamil or Similac for the intolerance stuff.  Some though need to go a step further and that is Neocate.

Here are a few things about Neocate--

1) It’s expensive.  Here’s a comparison:

$14.99

$27.90

$40 on the internet ($70 in the drugstore)

Well, Stunning and I got one thing of the Neocate from the doctor.  All of a sudden, we realized we were running insanely low and this isn’t something you can run to the store to get.  You have to get it from a drugstore (there’s only one in all of San Antonio that carries it in stock and it’s $70 there) or from the internet.  We realized this on Friday, so had to get it delivered on Saturday and had to buy it in a pack of four.  Grand total for four cans of formula?

$169.00

We went from breastfeeding, which would save us thousands to the most expensive formula known to man.  I’m thinking about getting a side job at McDonald’s.

I touched on this subject briefly yesterday, but there’s major shame involved with not breastfeeding and using formula.  Pamphlets and information across the hospital make it clear what the preference is for motherhood.  As I stated yesterday, I’m not arguing that breastfeeding is awesome and an amazing thing for a baby.  There are a ton of benefits and there’s a ton of shame in using formula. 

In the past 5.5 weeks, we’ve gone through an amazing journey… we’ve had nausea with breastfeeding, supplementing for jaundice, agony and intolerable pain with latching, a low milk supply, acid relfux, and milk-soy protein allergies.  I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s a pretty good list.  For us personally, it’s been absolutely impossible to breastfeed only because we couldn’t get a supply.  Junior would scream and scream when he was at the boob for an hour… he was still hungry.  Some literature says to let him stay hungry and go back to the boob for food.  We tried that and he was literally feeding for 12 hours straight.  I didn’t think it was fair to do this to him, so we supplemented with a bit of formula. 

Right now, we’re exclusively using formula.  Stunning has had to completely change her diet and we’ve had to wait for any of the allergen proteins to leave her body.  I must say though, when looking at the internet, you’re made to feel terrible about not breastfeeding.  A few comments I found:

A REALLY BAD IDEA - there is nothing in the formula your baby needs. Why do you want to do this?

Nutritionally, you're depriving your baby of what he/she could have in breastmilk - even one feeding.

Formula doesn't, it's artificial, made in a factory.

but read the stats, and look at the death/illness rate of formula fed infants compared to their breastfed counterparts… so despite your personal experience, you cannot deny the FACTS

It’s sad really.  We tried and we’re still trying.  I just wish there wasn’t so much pressure to breastfeed that it made mothers who don’t feel so guilty.

There’s a good chance my wife will be in a continual state of wanting pancakes.  That’s because over the next few weeks there’s a good chance she’ll smell like a hot pile of steaming pancakes drenched with maple syrup.  This isn’t some type of strange fat guy fantasy… It’s the truth.

Remember adventures in breastfeeding?  Well, the adventures have continued.  After I wrote my last post about it, Stunning developed extreme nausea while trying to feed from the boob.  She lost her appetite and said it was similar to the first trimester nausea.  Awesome.  Apparently, there’s a rare side effect to breast feeding, which is nausea and my wife is one in a million that had it.  Luckily that slowly disappeared.  It still rears its head every once in awhile, but nothing too extreme.

Then after the nausea went away, breastfeeding became extremely painful.  Like to the point that her toes would curl.  Yikes.  That was fun.. not really.

Then we have discovered over the last week and a half that she’s not producing enough milk.  If you see a lactation specialist, they weigh the baby before a feeding, let the mom feed and then weigh him afterward to see how much he took in.  Well, we were having some problems so we went to see the lactation person once and she was extremely helpful.. we thought we had it all figured out.  Then things deteriorated again…

Junior would basically sit at the boob and drink non-stop for almost an hour.  When the hour was up, he’d be in a state of panic.  He would stop latching and just go crazy.  We tried everything, but then we gave him a bottle of pumped milk, he drank another 2 ounces from it and then fell asleep.  This happened multiple times… clearly 50 minutes is not long enough, because my wife’s boobs aren’t giving him enough.  She made another appointment.

This time she had a different expert (what a strange job that would be, by the way) and this lady weighed him and then left for 45 minutes as Stunning breast fed… and then weighed him again and in 45 minutes he drank 1 ounce.  ONE OUNCE!!  After that, he was spastic crying and going crazy.. clearly hungry.  This lactation person though was close to a grade A dummy.  She said he was crying because he was probably having acid reflux.  She said one ounce was enough because “breast milk has more calories than formula”.  Ummm last time I checked, babies go by when their stomach is full not by looking at the nutritional facts on the side of a breast.  (“200% of my daily sodium?  Do you have a light version of your left breast mom?”)

Anyway, Stunning left that appointment in a state of shock.  The lady said that 1 ounce was enough, when we all know it’s not.  The kids an eater.  He’ll down one ounce in 2 minutes and then down another 3 if he’s hungry enough.  Then the fact that a supplement bottle will settle him down makes it clear that acid reflux isn’t a problem.

In the end, Stunning got in contact with another lactation lady from Madela (quite possibly the best company out there) and this lady said that indeed she was very low on milk production.  She suggested Fenugreek.  It’s a supplement that is used to increase milk production.  Well, it’s also used in cheap oatmeal… to make oatmeal smell like maple syrup.  That’s right… a side effect of Fenugreek is that you’ll start to smell like maple syrup.

My wife is going to become a big steaming pile of pancakes.

Almost all kids deal with the thing called jaundice at one point or another.  (Well, I guess it’s usually within the first few days of life that they deal with it, but you get what I mean… it affects a lot of children.)  Junior was one of those kids. 

When we left the hospital, the nurses said there were no signs of jaundice.  24 hours later, his nose had a crisp yellow and the whites of his eyes were not very white anymore.  Therefore, we called the doctor and headed in that day.  When you have a baby, it seems you go to the doctor a lot.

It’s amazing how quickly you can get attachment to your child.  While I knew everything was going to be okay (again, most children get jaundice), it was still tough to know that there is something wrong with your baby.  Of course, it didn’t help that the nurse practitioner messed up the severity.  The first time she told us, and as we left the office, she had us believing that Junior was at “high” risk from jaundice.  In reality, it was moderate.  That’s a big difference for parents who are both good at worrying. 

Anyway, it led to an uncomfortable 24 hour period.  We had to sunbathe Junior:

We also had to feed him more..  Since we were breastfeeding it meant Stunning had a lot of work to do.. Here were the orders: 1) Feed Junior from the boob every three hours.  2) After feeding him give him a bottle of pumped breast milk. 3) Pump breast milk 1.5 hours after the start of a feeding.

That doesn’t sound too bad.  However, when you realize it takes this kid 30 minutes to feed, which means when he’s done feeding, she had 60 minutes before pumping.  Then she’d have to pump for 30 minutes to get enough milk. Then feed him 60 minutes later.  After pumping, she would wash everything, change his diaper, get him to settle down.  She did this for 24 hours.  Talk about torture and making you feel like a milking machine… 

Anyway, after all that work we went back to the doctor the next day and found out his levels had actually gone up.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because increased levels can be sustained as he gets older.  However, he was still at the “moderate” risk level.  This meant we faced another 24 hours of this torture. 

When we went to the doctor’s the next day, we discovered his levels had decreased and we rejoiced.  It was 72 hours of worry, torture, and pretty crazy period of his life.  He’s done with jaundice now though, so we can be happy.

However, I must say, for as bad as Junior had it.   His cousin had it much worse.  He had to go back to the hospital.  He got better after being under a light bath for 24 hours.  Now that’s torture!

Poor little dude.

You need to take 5 minutes to watch this video.  Seriously, I am not joking, you have to watch it…

A few things I’d like to review:

1. What the hell?!? 
2. At 20 seconds, the mom tells the child, “If there’s any monkey business, I’ll have to leave.”  Ummm… what monkey business would that be??
3. How awkward is it to see a giant child at the momma’s nip?
4. If her sister likes it so much, why did she stop feeding at the age of five?
5. When Junior is able to verbalize… or come close to verbalize… or be within a couple years of verbalizing his breastfeeding experience… he will not be breastfeeding
6. Amazing Line: “Better than anything in the world, better than a mango even.”
7. Even More Amazing Line: “I’d rather have lots of breast milk than a million melons.”
8. Pretty Amazing Line: “They don’t like it when I put a bra on, they think I’m trapping the breast.”
9. I’m sorry lady, but if your kids have been at the breast for over 10 years… I’m pretty certain you *do* have long nipples.  I’d wager they’re gigantically long. 
10. I’m glad they won’t be allowed to breastfeed when they get married, but my guess is that it’s going to be a challenge to find someone to marry when you try to rationalize sucking your momma’s boobs for so long…
11. Anyone surprised that they pray to the earth and sun?  I’m not.
12. The husband says, “If my mother could see us now…”  Dude…  I’m guessing if your mother saw what was going on in your house, she’d slap you.  It wouldn’t be a normal slap though, it’d be a really hard slap and maybe a double slap.
13. I have no current plans to taste my wife’s breast milk.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in my 11 day old life as a father has been breastfeeding… and no people… I am not the one doing the breastfeeding.  However, that does not mean I don’t have a big role to play. 

It’s pretty amazing that each day it seems we’re facing a new challenge.  I’m writing this post on Tuesday morning, so by the time it posts in 24 hours we’ll probably have faced a whole new challenge.

The amazing thing about breastfeeding is that you would think it is the most natural thing in the world.  I mean, we’ve all been doing it for thousands and thousands of years.  People didn’t have bottle a few hundred years ago and that meant there’s only one option… the boob.  However, as someone going through the boob feeding, it’s definitely not as instinctual as one would think.

First of all, in the hospital the breastfeeding was extremely painful for my wife.  When he latched, it nearly brought tears to her eyes…and a few times it did.

Speaking of latching, it’s been a constant struggle.  For those without a background, a latch is when the baby make a good suction on the nip and the latch itself should stay constant for quite some time.  When Junior is doing good, the latch will last 20 minutes.  Sometimes it lasts 10 seconds.

Junior had a bout of jaundice and we were under orders from the doctor to increase the amount he was eating.  The doctor told us to feed him every three hours and then have Stunning pump 1.5 hours after and then feed him the pumped milk at his next feeding.  Therefore, Stunning would feed him at the nip and this would take 30 – 40 minutes.  Then she’d pump an hour later for 15 – 30 minutes.  Then an hour later she’d feed him for 30 minutes and give him the bottle and then have to pump an hour later.  We did this for 24 hours, went back to the doctor and they told us to do it for another 24 hours.  That’s when we had a mental breakdown (and really, we had a boob breakdown as well… that’s a lot of work for boobs!!).

To combat the jaundice, we then started supplementing with formula.  Then Junior no longer wanted to latch, because he had discovered the joys of a bottle, which supplies the same amount of milk as a boob but in 5 minutes instead of 40.

Stunning and I prayed and prayed and prayed that he would latch again and we could begin breasfeeding him again.  This was on Sunday.

On Monday, Junior latched!!!  We were so thrilled.  He got a good latch at noon and wouldn’t let go.  He let go at 12:40pm and then wanted more at 1pm!  We were so excited… then the dude never wanted to let go.  He was basically attached for 12 hours straight at the boob.  It was out of control.  God answered our prayers with something like, “Oh you want him to latch? I’ll show you latching!”  By 9pm on Monday, Stunning and I were praying that he would stop latching and be satisfied.

We’re thinking he wasn’t getting enough food from the nip, so it required a lot of feeding.  Needless to say, this was quite taxing…  Last night, we went back to a bottle of collected milk and ended up going with a bottle of formula as well.  

It’s Tuesday and who knows what will happen today.  On Wednesday, we have an appointment with a lactation expert… and hopefully we’ll get some more information.