Previous Chapter, Lactation Stories: The Mother’s Group
The mother’s group broke up and finally, John arrived for our appointment. The LC interviewed us regarding the birth and our breastfeeding problems and then observed a feeding. She put on a glove and felt around in Elsa’s mouth, testing her sucking abilities and looking at her tongue. So far, everything she did seemed reasonable. She had me lie down on a daybed in her office and showed me how to nurse both lying down on my side and lying on my back with Elsa sprawled across my chest, faced down on my boobs. The nursing session was one of the least painful I had experienced thus far and Elsa nursed for longer than she ever had (probably about 15 minutes). This woman was everything we had hoped for – Our Savior!
After Elsa finished nursing, she sat us down and very sincerely asked us about our diet. And we sheepishly explained that we knew we were not eating very healthy. Bagels. Pizza. Ice cream. Chicken wings. . . But we try and eat a vegetable at every meal! Kale! We eat kale! She nodded knowingly. She scribbled furiously on a pad of paper. She told us we should know better (and we should). At some point, I made an off-hand comment about Elsa’s dry skin and how I had put Johnson’s baby oil on her little, cracked feet. She stared at me.
“Why would you do that?”
“Um. Because her feet were really dry and cracked?”
“No. I mean WHY would you do that to your child!? You’re poisoning her.”
“Um. Ok. Sorry?”
….. Under normal circumstances, this would have been unnaceptable – but these were desperate times.
I still have her list of prescriptions: A morning smoothie of: coconut water, coconut milk kefir, berries and cherries, raw almond butter, coconut oil, flax or chia seeds, vega protein powder, green food powder, and blackstrap mollasses. We looked at the ingredient list baffled, but resigned to follow her instructions. She scribbled some vegetable juice recipes and about 6 different supplements (magnesium, vitamin D, essential fatty acids), homeopathic remedies (arnica), and Bach flowers. She made me a mixture of Bach flowers to take home and take as frequently as I needed. I was told they would cure my hopelessness and fear of failure – which sounded great! She insisted I call a specific chiropractor in the morning to have both myself and Elsa adjusted and gave me the number of a doctor who would clip Elsa’s posterior tongue tie.
Ah the tongue tie. One LC in the Children’s Hospital had commented that she though Elsa might have a posterior tongue tie. I mentioned this to her pediatrician and he glanced in her mouth and said, “I haven’t seen one of those in 20 years! She definitely doesn’t have a tongue-tie. Breastfeeding can be painful and you just have to grin and bear it.” So when this new LC told us Elsa definitively had a posterior tongue-tie, we were somewhat skeptical because of our pediatrician. Plus, by the end of the appointment, we had garnered enough information about this woman to realize she was an extremist. She lectured us that tongue-ties are a result of our toxic wombs and nutritional deficiencies and that, even after the initial clipping, we might need to have two or three re-clippings done. Ya know – becuase my womb was probably extra toxic.
For karma’s sake, I have to explain that she was really very nice to us – extreme and crazy but nice. By the end of the appointment, I was staring at Elsa and crying again – blubbering, “I just don’t know why I’m doing this. My mother-in-law sees me in so much pain and tells me just to give her a bottle – like it is so easy. But I can’t . . . and I don’t know why. Why am I doing this!? This is so stupid.”
She got down on one knee and wrapped her arms around me and cooed, “It’s okay. You are doing an amazing job.” She pointed to Elsa and said, “Look at your beautiful baby. She is healthy and happy and you are the reason why. She is thriving and, even though you are in pain right now, you are doing the absolute best thing for both of you. We are going to fix this. Your baby is beautiful and healthy. You’re baby is beautiful and healthy . . .” I sobbed in her arms while she murmured this to me. And, despite all of her lunacy and talk of toxins and her minions of brainwashed allergy moms – that moment has really stuck with me above everything else. I looked at Elsa through new eyes and, for the first time, saw that she was healthy and that I was doing the best thing for both of us.
Healthy. Happy. Cross-eyed. Awesome.
We left her office ready to follow her advice out of desperation – but I was not ready to accept this tongue-tie business just yet. I will drink smoothies at her insistence, but I will not CUT my babies tongue on her advice alone. We headed to Whole Foods and spent over $100 on mysterious bottles and vials and powders. We headed home where I was totally unable to replicate the nursing success I had in her office. But we drank our smoothies (granted our own modified version with only about 1/2 the ingredients she had prescribed) and I took my arnica and Bach flowers for hopelessness. I researched tongue-ties relentlessly and was unable to find any definitive source of information that told me, “Yes, your daughter is tongue-tied.” I made an appointment with the chiropractor and postponed the call to the tongue-tie doctor.
For about a week, things improved very slightly. Elsa’s poop was back to normal and she seemed somewhat more awake during the day. I knew she was getting enough milk because she was peeing/pooing and her weight checks at the pediatrician were always above average. Whether or not I was in excruciating pain, she was thriving. The chiropractor was actually a really wonderful woman and an ‘adjustment’ on a baby is really just a series of very gentle massages to their neck, upper back, and cheeks – no cracking or snapping like you think of with adult chiroprachty. Elsa would always sleep through the appointments, though the adjustments did have the curious effect of making her poop explosively during the appointment. For a day or two after seeing the chiropractor, breastfeeding would seem to improve. I got myself adjusted as well (with some major cracking!) and that was actually wonderful because my shoulders and back were so contorted from all the nursing Smackdowns.
The LC or her assistant called me daily – which was both disconcerting and encouraging. I was afraid of her and all her declarations of toxic poisoning, but it felt nice to have someone that seemed to care intensely about my breastfeeding (though also somewhat disconcerting).
I came down with mastitis one night (intense pain in my breast + high fever) after a number of days with plugged ducts. When I called the LC for help, she informed me that: 1) I had mastitis because of Elsa’s tongue-tie and, 2) I should NEVER microwave my food because I will be poisoning my whole family. Great. Thanks. Let me go cook a gluten-free, gourmet meal while my breast rots off my body.
She prescribed castor oil compresses and told me to continue with the arnica. I went to my midwife and got a prescription for antibiotics, which I held off on taking, knowing I wanted to avoid antibiotic therapy just yet. Thankfully, the infection cleared up on its own, but not before I revisited the idea that maybe Elsa was tongue-tied. At this point, it had been over three weeks and, though things had improved slightly, it became obvious that I was not going to be able to continue breastfeeding her with this level of pain and recurrent mastitis. Something was still wrong.
I researched as much as I could and finally called the doctor whose number she had given me.
Continued in, Lactation Stories: The Tongue-Tie
