Got milk?

As with any part of pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery, it seems whatever you experience is both normal and unique. Most mothers will try to tell you how their entire experience was and that what Danielle experienced was in some ways similar, i.e. normal. Yet, in the same breath, most will also say that everybody's experience is different, i.e. unique. The same thing holds true with doctors and nurses. It'll be a mixture of "don't worry, what you're feeling is normal" and "every mother is different, so it's hard to answer that question".

So, we thought after reading different things and hearing from the lactation consultant that you should be producing milk within about 2-3 days after delivery. Here we were 6 days later and hardly anything was being produced. It wasn't even certain that she was producing the initial colostrum. We were getting concerned and wanted to try and get some help at some point, especially if she wasn't producing by today. Then we talk to some other mothers and they say..."oh no, most mothers don't start producing for almost a week after delivery. That's completely normal." So, we're both unique and normal at the same time. *sigh*

Fortunately, we weren't left wondering much longer this morning. Actually, last night we could notice a little more was dripping out and her breasts were feeling a bit more enlarged. This morning, we tried the breast pump and she actually pumped out almost a full 3 oz (to give an idea, that's a full bottle of formula that we were given at the hospital). So, we were elated. We tried giving Joshua the bottle of breastmilk this morning and he immediately took it which made us feel good that he wasn't solely dependant on the formula. The next step will be weaning him off the bottle nipple and getting him onto Danielle.

So it goes one week into his new life.