The annual Hakab Na! celebration or the Big Latch On will be on August 06 at SM Seaside Cebu. I’m so happy that they’re allowing exclusive pumping mommies such as myself to join the event! 😀
In celebration of Hakab Na!, I decided to share what my exclusive pumping journey has been like:
I think I was around 6 months pregnant when I became a member of the Facebook group Breastfeeding Pinays. I forgot who added me to the group or who told me about it but I would read their entries and the links they posted on the wall and I was convinced that no matter what I was going to breastfeed Riley!
After perusing a lot of online articles and backreading success stories of BFP members, I decided I would definitely need a pump too. I googled and asked a lot of new mommy friends and most of them recommended Medela to me but when I checked the prices they were INSANELY HIGH. I checked online and the prices were still up there. So I decided to do some further research and found some mommy forums that recommended a Korean brand called “Spectra”.
I read about the brand and the different models and I checked Amazon. The Spectra s2 was the top-rated breastpump and it was on sale too for $120! I read some more reviews about it and a lot of moms said that they preferred it over Medela and they were actually able to get more milk from it and it was less painful! I was sold! I asked my cousin in the US to ship it to me with some other stuff but it took longer than expected so I didn’t get it until sometime in January when my uncle came home.
Anyway, fast forward to when I was about to give birth… my friend Lang2x was nice enough to lend me her manual Farlin breastpump which I made sure to pack in my hospital bag.
This is a photo I grabbed from the internet. The actual pump looked exactly like this except I broke the box kind of >_< Still… I’m very grateful to my friend for lending me her pump! 😀
After giving birth, I was pretty tired and while in the recovery room, I was busy choosing what my first post-partum meal would be… I remembered reading that lots of fruits and veggies and soup would be good for my milk supply so I asked for ramen and a large mango banana shake from thirsty. I couldn’t eat the ramen because I couldn’t move my arms properly but I drank the shake in one go. Little did I know that it was a bad idea to drink cold food/drinks as your first meal/drink post-partum XD (not sure if this is backed by science or an old wives tale).
After 30 minutes to an hour, they brought Riley in the recovery room so she could breastfeed (my OB did practice Unang Yakap but Riley didn’t have a successful latch when she tried to breastfeed from me immediately after I gave birth). I could barely move my left arm because I think I pinched a nerve so I had a really hard time trying to position her to latch. I moved her between both breasts and I think she was able to get a little milk from both sides. This took over an hour. After we were done and I was very tired, I asked them to bring Riley back to the nursery and I was ready to head back into our room.
At this point I was SO TIRED. When I got to the room, it was already around 8PM and I wanted to sleep. I was able to sleep for maybe an hour or two then they woke me up at around 10PM because Riley was crying and needed to be fed. So I slowly made my way down to the nursery… I had such a hard time walking and my arm was still numb. It took me over an hour to feed her because I couldn’t get her to latch properly.
I went up at 11+ and I thought she would sleep a little longer this time but at 2 AM they called me again and told me that Riley needed to be fed and she wouldn’t stop crying. They asked me if I wanted to give her formula and I declined and told them I was on my way down. This time, I saw other mothers breastfeeding their children and they did so effortlessly. I sat down on the chair and had a hard time feeding Riley again and she would cry and fuss a lot but I still kept trying.
After about 4 or 5 more feedings like that, they asked me if I was ready to have her roomed-in with me. I said ok it would make things a lot easier but it was difficult because they didn’t have a bed for her and I had to share my tiny bed with her. When she would sleep, I would try to pump with the Farlin manual pump my friend lent me. I could get around 0.5 oz from both breasts after around 20 mins of pumping.
I continued to feed Riley and then pump after every 2 hours while trying to get some sleep in between. After every pump I would have a cup of chocolate oatmeal drink and crackers. Pumping and breastfeeding makes you INSANELY hungry. To this day my dad still teases me because during my second week post-partum I think I cried because I was so hungry and wanted to eat dinner already XD.
When we were finally able to go home, the first thing I did was to ask my dad to buy me an electric pump because I could not keep manually pumping until my Spectra s2 came. So my dad got me a Spectra 3 from Baobao Babies (P4,900) as well as the silicon massagers because I thought I needed them. Well, the silicon massagers were useless. I also asked my dad to get me a malunggay supplement and they had Moringana available.
Once I got my Spectra 3, I decided to become an exclusive pumper. With the Spectra 3 I was able to pump around 2-3 oz every 2-3 hours. The pain and numbness in my arm got worse, our latching sessions were taking longer, and I was sleeping less. My nipples were bruised and sore and my husband was concerned and said that maybe I should give myself a rest from direct latching and just focus on pumping first. Unfortunately, I failed to do my research on nipple confusion and Riley was almost immediately nipple confused because we used bottles.
What I did next was I researched from various forums and websites about galactagogues that would help with milk supply. Riley was always hungry and I could only produce just enough, during the first two weeks it actually felt like I wasn’t producing enough. Yaya Jen, our former cocinera, kept saying that my milk supply seemed inadequate and would subtly try to suggest that maybe we should give Riley formula. My boobs were bleeding and swollen from I cried and cried and cried and was really thinking that maybe I might have to supplement with formula. Milk making was a lot harder than it seemed.
After three (3) weeks of pumping every 2 hours (10-12 times a day at least 15 minutes per pump) and taking 3 moringana capsules 3x and 3 fenugreek capsules 3x a day (both the maximum recommended dose per day), I FINALLY saw a slow increase in my milk supply. Slowly, I was able to start filling my empty milk bags and build a stash. By the time I went to work at 1 MPP, I think I had around 100 oz in the fridge and I was very proud of myself 😀
From there, I slowly decreased my galactagogues (for the next 3 weeks I only took 2 capsules, 3x a day, then 2 capsules 2x a day, then 1 capsule 3x a day, then 1 capsule twice a day, and now I’m only taking 1 capsule of moringana a day but now with mother nurture chocomix 2x a day) and decreased my pumps to 6 pumps per day and I no longer do a middle-of-the-night pump! At 3 months, Riley was also sleeping through the night! And at 3 months my milk supply was also established at 40-50 oz/day 😀
Eventually, we had to buy a chest freezer when I had around 600 oz in our freezer. In the chest freezer I was able to store more than double that and we currently have around 1,300 oz in the freezer. Since breastmilk lasts for 6 months to 1 year in a deep freezer, I make sure to donate milk after every 3 months to be able to share the extra milk that God has blessed us with and also to clear up room in the freezer.
Hello, Riley! 