The lactation battle rages on

Okay, just a warning...YES, this is another whiny post about my milk production. There. You've been warned.

This time it's serious.

On Thursday, after I woke up, got McKenna off to school, and took my first round of meds being one tablet of amoxicillin and one tablet of Vicodin, I noticed that my one and only pumping session for the day was...uhm, a little light. Usually if I pump once during the day, I can usually produce about 6-7 ounces without breaking a sweat. This time, I got less than an ounce.

To be quite honest, at the time, I was too sick and feeling so crappy that I really didn't care and I didn't think much about it other than to stop taking the antibiotics in case that was the culprit and plan to book some extra pumping time next week, being NOW.

However, it hasn't gotten any better. Not at all. And McKenna has depleted about half of my frozen stash in the freezer.

I'm starting to realize that this could be the beginning of the end of my breast-feeding partnership with McKenna. I'm going to fight it, of course, and I HATE IT that it's happened, but I guess I should be grateful that I was able to keep it going for the first six months. Initially, that's all I was planning on doing anyway.

I called a La Leche consultant today and talked to her about the problem. I think I have a pretty good game plan. For starters, I don't think I've been taking enough fenugreek to make it really work. I've heard a lot of people mention that when they take fenugreek, they smell like maple syrup and so does their milk. I've never noticed that smell, but I never really worried since my milk supply was never an issue before. So I'm going to take more of it. I bought two boxes of mother's milk tea, which is a special herbal blend created just for lactating mothers to help boost milk supply. I'm going to pump as much as possible after feeding McKenna, and encourage her to nurse more at night when I'm with her, even if that means waking her up to nurse. I'm going to try to go down to her school at lunchtime as much as possible the next two weeks so I can get more stimulation from an actual baby and not an electrical appliance pretending to be a baby. I'm going to eat oatmeal every day for breakfast. I'm going to drink as much water as I can. And this week I'm going to have McKenna sleep with me in bed so she can nurse a little bit more during the night. The consultant is thinking that my body is starting to put on the brakes with the milk since it's sensing that I don't need it anymore since McKenna nurses maybe 3-4 times a day during the week.

But if things haven't started to turn back around by the end of the night Friday night, I'm digging my powdered formula out of the pantry and am going to start adding that to her bottles so I can stretch my tiny milk supply out as long as possible.

I guess I should feel really good that I was able to do it this long. The La Leche consultant was very impressed that I was a full-time working mom and had given McKenna nothing but breast milk from the day she was born with the exception of that tiny period the first week where she took a little formula. I know I've given her a wonderful gift and a wonderful start in life. Ten years from now, she won't remember that I wasn't able to nurse her for a full year.

But I'll remember. And I guess that's why I feel so crappy right now.

Keep your fingers crossed that I'm able to fool my body into relactating.