Feel like a fraud

Don't, because we all have bad days and good days. You may have helped that person when they were having a bad day feel good again. And, since you're having a bad day, you know that it will pass and you'll feel good again soon. That's how I have managed it myself and since having it for the past 3 years, it's not a bad way to manage it. I come on this site because it makes me feel like I'm not alone in the world with this. It's nice to be able to talk, encourage and to be encouraged by someone else here. Or, even just to keep reading posts.

Coming here just helps to accept yourself the way you are.

you're no fraud, you're real
it stayed up for two weeks, and it will go back up
its worst during your period and the cold/coughing isn't going to help either.
you 'won' once, you will win again.

I agree, this is a journey of the most difficult nature, and it stinks on the bad days. that's what we're here for.
this too shall pass......

ps- when I first got here I thought I'd be exempt too, thought all I had to do was read the book and I'd be fine. I think its a normal part of the process.

Hi Sheppie

You're no fraud, just normal, and very honest for posting your experiences from last week.

RIDDLE: How do you make God laugh?

ANSWER: Tell Him your plans for tomorrow!

This up and down thing happens all the time. Just look after it so it doesn't get worse.

Re coughing, try to keep your mouth shut tight, all the time while not talking, so you don't get air full of atmospheric irritants like pollen, dust, car fumes, viruses, cold air, dry air etc in your throat. This is really hard when you have a stuffed up nose, and it will probably make you feel panicky, and that you are not getting enough air, but the panicky feeling tell your brain to dilate your airways so you can breathe more easily through your nose. Try sleeping on your left side. For some reason this seems to keep nasal passages open better. I am sure this will break the cycle of throat irritation > coughing> throat irritation > coughing, to some degree, help you get rid of the cough and prevent any more bugs and other irritants getting into your throat, causing further irritation.

We were designed to breathe through our noses. Babies who cannot breathe through their noses at birth will die unless the nasal passages are cleared! We were never designed to breathe through our mouthes from the start. Our nasal passages are designed to purify and warm air before it hits our throats and lungs. That is why it has all those convoluted passages.

All this stuff is part of Buteyko breathing. Buteyko is the thing that cured my asthma and stopped me coughing.

Keep your mouth for laughing, kissing, eating, talking and catching your breath after exertion.

Good luck.

Louise

Hi Sheppie

Why for a whole 7 days? Why not for a couple of days while the anaesthetic gets out of your system? Is this medical insurance gone mad?

There are a whole heap of websites about "surgery" "breastfeeding". Here is one to start off with. http://www.kellymom.com/health/illness/mom-surgery.html .

The ones I saw basically said it depends on what drugs you are using, and the right of the baby to continue to be breastfed and the mother to continue to nurse can often be accommodated by changing the method of anaesthesia (eg epidural) and the type of antibiotics and painkillers post op. Often you can just express and freeze for a week or two beforehand to give the caregiver a supply for 24 hours after surgery, feed just before you go under and express the contaminated milk when you come out of anaesthetic, then commence breastfeeding again when you feel up to it, and have the baby either staying in hopital with you or brought to you for feeds, or continue expressing and freezing if necessary until you are discharged. You just have to plan it in cooperation with the hospital.

My guess is that lactation in a surgical patient is an inconvenience for the surgeon that he would rather not have to deal with, as if he will be anywhere near your boobs!. It may also be another factor that the anaesthetist would not have to deal with if you weaned. Hey, they are specialists. They can deal with it. You shouldn't have to compromise your childrearing to accommodate the convenience of medical specialists! You are paying them, not the other way around!

By eight months of age a baby is most likely not going to forget how to milk the breast in a few days. They know all about how to do it!! And IMHO, nursing a baby is such a wonderful weapon/tool to have up your sleeve for teething, sleeping difficulties and illness during toddlerhood, but I am biased ...

My first was weaned overnight at the age of 16 months when I was hospitalised for a month. He was mostly breastfed at the time. I had to fight him off when I returned home by wearing neck to knee clothes so he couldn't get access to my breasts, as I was still bed-ridden for another week. I wish I had let him start again, as he had hardly seen me over the previous month and it nearly broke my heart when I knew what he wanted. By the age of 17 months he was quite easily distracted by more exciting things than my boobs, but I really missed cuddling up with him once I was around him again. I had nothing much else I could do anyway. LOL

I think you would be wise to tell your doctor how much you want to keep breastfeeding and ask exactly why 7 days, and ask for alternative anaesthesia methods and drugs that could reduce this time.

At a push you could express enough milk for him for a week, as you have a couple of months to do it. Switching the baby partly to formula would also be possible, then you could build up your supply again after the op, but I guess the less artificial milk he has, and the less alternative milk feeding methods he has, the better. I would think that to keep breastfeeding right through, apart from the 24 hours after surgery, would be what I would go for, for simplicity.

No, he won't forget. If baby decides he doesn't want to continue after the op, nothing is lost, but I would put money on his continuing.;-)

I can't see how weaning will affect your rectocele, or is that not what you meant in the second last paragraph? Just make sure you know what is going to happen in the way of surgical procedures, eg is the surgeon assuming that he will be repairing the rectocele as well? Are you assuming that this op is nothing to do with the rectocele? Just make sure he knows what you want and don't want done. Make sure he discusses this with you well beforehand. Good luck.

Cheers

Louise

:::::nodding:::::: to everything louise said

aside from one thing, I do remember reading that there are windows when babies are more likely to go on nursing strikes and wean prematurely. I am very likely to be wrong, but for some reason 8 months seems like a vulnerable time to me. maybe with the intro of solids/teething etc?

a 16 mo, imo, is more emotionally and psychologically attached to the breast than physically so they, ime and opinion, are less likely to wean after a week's break.

however, if you are determined (and it sounds like you are) that he not wean, he won't. you'll just resume the bf and not give in to any possible preferences to other sources of nutrition.

but I definitely agree that you might want to double and triple check with the dr as to the neccessity of your weaning for a full 7 days.
and I'd make sure you have a top of the line pump with you at all times postop to maintain a supply.

good luck with it all

doubly agreeing with what was said!
I would really push as to why you need to wean. Does the hospital have a lactation consultant? Get them on board with your doctor and see what they can come up with together. Women breastfeed after c-sections under a general, so why not other surgeries? Women are told all the time to wean for surgery, but it is rarely necessary. If you do, see if you can get him / her used to a cup rather than a bottle, as bottle preference is a tougher one to deal with.
If after he is resistant to starting up again, feeding at night or in the bath, when relaxed and sleepy, and lots of skin to skin contact help. stay in bed together, cuddle, play, no pressure, and the feeding should follow!

I would also wonder, are their natural ways to heal a fissure? If you have four months, maybe it's worth a go for you? A quick google on healing fissures naturally comes up with a wealth...

and with regards to feeling worse, i think it's part of this for everyone. I'm sure we all wish things would magically disapear, but then come to the place of accepting our newfound body. But it takes time--i'm still getting there 9 months on. but you know where your body can get to, and it will get there again. there is still a lot of healing to come--4 months is early for your body. i imagine that with time the "downs" will be less profound as the body is stronger and more settled in the posture, and will bounce back faster--that's my hope at least!

I assume we're talking about an anal fissure? I know nothing about your condition, Sheppie, only that I would be very wary of anything "done" to my anus. The anal sphincter is a marvel of engineering and if damaged can lead to the worst suffering.

The ww peri balm is formulated to be strengthening and building and is ultimately soothing. Not trying to sell anything here...but these are the types of conditions I intended the salves for.

Yeah, Gmom is right. There are times when feeding strikes can happen. I did find some evidence on my googlings that there may be babies who do not return to nursing after a surgical break.

When I used to work as a trained volunteer breastfeeding counsellor we used to tell Mums that at about four months babies can get fussy at the breast, as they become suddenly more aware of what is going on around them. This is where the quiet, darkened room comes in, to remove as much sensory distraction as possible. The next one is at 7-8 months when babies learn that they can keep themselves awake. This is when they often no longer go to sleep at the breast, even if they are really tired. This just makes them more grumpy and fussy. In amongst all this is teething, but the main problems seem to be with emergence of canines and molars, which of course usually come a little later.

An intuitive Mum will know how harmonious a feeding relationship is at any point in time. They all go through a sticky patch or two. I think being positive and calm about it is what really matters, and just doing your best, knowing that whenever baby weans you have given them the best food for as long as you could. If they stop after the surgery it is not the end of the world, disappointing and inconvenient as it may seem. I was always reminding myself that breastfeeding is primarily for the baby, secondarily for the Mum.

And Granolamom, I do like your idea of having several different types of slings, so you can change depending on how you are feeling bodily during the day. It also means you are not tied in to using exactly the same muscle groups all the time when you are wearing baby.

I also used to have a sarong exactly 6ft long and 3ft wide. I used to tie the ends in a reefknot and wear it over one shoulder with the knot slightly in front of my shoulder which gave a good load distribution on my shoulder. Good for carrying an unhappy toddler on the hip for short periods, or nursing a smaller babe discreetly. (Who, me? Discreet? Never!)

Cheers

Louise

Hi Sheppie

Looks like you are in touch with all the issues and have some good resources. Keep us posted, as these sorts of answers can be very useful when you least expect it. A currently trained and up to date LC will give you good info. I have been out of the breastfeeding support network for some time now. Some basics never change but there is possibly better information out there now.

I just get a bit p***ed off when there is an assumption that breastfeeding an eight month old baby is not important enough to look at (drug?) options for surgery in the first place. Your doctor may have other reasons for saying 7 days that I have not a clue about. On the other hand, s/he may be just as ignorant about doing breastfeeding management as your LC is about doing surgery. I think that is a fair guess.

Hypothetically, if you were in early pregnancy and needed the surgery I am dead certain that the surgeon would regard the fact that you were in early pregnancy as being one of the major factors s/he would consider in planning the surgery. S/he certainly wouldn't tell you to have a termination before the surgery. Sure, it is different, but not *that* different.

Just make no assumptions and you should be right. Then fight for your right to do whatever you have to do to ensure that your breastfeeding relationship with your baby suffers minimal disruption. Good luck.

Just one other point Sheppie. You wrote, "As he explained it, it is a tunnel that has formed. If not fixed, it will 'form more tunnels'". This sounds to my cynical mind very like the story I got from my family doctor that if I didn't have surgery for prolapse soon, it would get worse and I would end up needing much more complicated surgery later. I would ask him to point you to evidence of a situation from an authoritative publication where a fissure has formed more tunnels, or that a multiple tunnel repair job started off as one tunnel, and ask him why and how it would form more tunnels.

Also, as Christine says, anal surgery does have its failure rates, risks and possible complications. From the research she has done she would know a lot about it than I would.

I would be seeking a second and even third opinion, and do some research for yourself on the potential outcomes so you can measure the risk for you, the mother and woman. To do this you will also need from him the names of the procedure he will be doing, or consider doing once he has a look inside. It's your body, baby! He will go home to his wife and kids afterwards.

It also $ounds to my cynical mind that he might want to 'make the $ale', and not $ee you go off to another $urgeon for the $ame op. Mind you, my cynicism pours cold water on lots of things, but it has also allowed me to see through the haze on occasions and avoid potential disasters. I don't want to put you off something that I don't know a lot about, but sometimes a guardian angel sitting on your screen, saying "don't forget to check out this or that" beforehand can be a catalyst for finding out important stuff that you had not thought of yourself. On the other hand, you can just give a flick of the finger to your shoulder and I'll go off, find an ice pack and land on another shoulder. ;-)

Cheers

Louise

A friend of mine has a 10 month old baby boy who went on a nursing strike for 9 days, and then returned to nursing. What got him started again was simply that he got really hungry at a time when there was no bottle available. I write this to let you know that it isn't guaranteed that a 7 day break will cause a baby to wean.

Hi Sheppie

Yes, yes, yes on all counts. It's great that you are checking your facts. I am sure you will get the right outcome, and Christine should be back today or tomorrow.

All the best.

Louise