I feel so lucky to be able to present this guest post by Karma, author of the blog "She's Having our Baby." Karma, who lives in Toronto, has been inducing lactation so that she can nurse her baby, who is being carried by her sister.
My journey to becoming a mother will have taken approximately 1,825 days by the time our daughter arrives this June.
My husband and I are nearing the end of our third trimester, but if you saw us we would look no different than before we were expecting. That’s because it’s my younger sister who is now sporting the baby bump, our baby bump. She’s our gestational carrier - meaning the baby she's growing for us is biologically our child, but is in her uterus.
So back to the beginning, and I promise I'll be brief:
Diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 30; had just met my now husband, then boyfriend only a month before so things were BRAND new; cancer treatment meant I'd lose my fertility so we had to decide in 24 hours what to do - did I mention we'd only be dating for a month?
So we decided to move forward with an IVF cycle, which resulted in 20 embryos. Fast-forward a couple of years: now married, we decide to thaw some of our embryos out to see what could happen and we embark on what I honestly thought would be our baby-walk-in-the-park. Not even close...endless hormone cycles, transfers, tears, frustrations, and no success. We finally admitted defeat. Enter my sister - our savior and currently 38.5 weeks pregnant with our little girl.
One of the things I’ve been very excited about is the prospect of breastfeeding our little girl. I had no idea this was even a possibility until our fertility doctor casually asked if I was planning on doing it. I was immediately like, “Yes! If I can…how can I?” That’s when I first heard about Dr. Jack Newman and learned that there are ways to induce lactation.
I was on the accelerated protocol, which consisted of the birth control pill for about eight weeks, while also taking a drug called domperidone, normally used for digestion. Almost instantly I was STARVING – that’s just one of the side effects of domperidone, along with inducing lactation. Then after the eight weeks, I stopped the birth control pill and started pumping.
It’s been over six weeks of pumping six times during the day and once in the middle of the night. I’m using a double electric pump, which seems to be doing the trick. I got drops on my first pump session, and have now progressed to about 8-10oz per day, depending on the day. I’ve found Gatorade and daily oatmeal have made the biggest impact on my production, along with the 120mg of domperidone every day. The pumping hasn’t been easy – I work full time and trying to find time during the day to pump, amid meetings, has been a challenge. I’m tired from getting up each night to pump, but also know this will be good practice for the newborn phase.
But whenever I’m feeling frustrated by the pumping, or by the production, I remember why I’m doing this. Number one, it’s the best thing for our little girl. Number two, breastfeeding is going to be the most “normal” part of having this baby so far, and I can’t wait to be like every other new mom.
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