adventures in breastfeeding

all through my pregnancy i planned to breastfeed little roo, even though the thought of it kinda freaked me out a bit. there's just so many benefits (better for baby, cheaper than formula, etc.) to not give it a try. before we left the hospital, quentin and i worked with the lactation consultant a couple of times. he really didn't latch on very well, but she said that's normal for early babies. we just needed to keep at it. we kept trying and he'd get it it eventually each time we tried. we would just have to be patient with him as he fussed and slurped for 30 minutes. unfortunately, his laziness at the breast was worrying the nurses who didn't think he was getting enough to eat. they really wanted us to give him some formula but we resisted, being super stubborn about nursing and being patient with quentin. when we left the hospital, he had only lost 5% of his birth weight - perfectly normal, so we must have been doing something right! the hospital sends a nurse to the home of all newborns the day after they leave the hospital. so sunday roo and i saw a nurse at home. she checked us both out, making sure we were progressing as appropriate. when she weighed quentin, he was down to 6 pounds 14 ounces which borders on 10% weight loss and is a bit of cause for concern. quentin was a bit jaundiced so that could have been contributing to his suppressed appetite. she insisted we immediately start supplementing with formula and feed every 2 hours. we really didn't want to, but we also didn't want to starve our baby. unfortunately this was around the same time when quentin decided to flat out refuse nursing. not wanting to switch to 100% formula in fear we might not ever go back, i decided to give the dinky manual breast pump the hospital gave me a try. i was able to pump out enough that we could minimize formula intake. damn was it tiring, all that squeezing, but worth it for my little baby. each time, we'd try to get him to take the breast but he just wouldn't. the nurse also consulted with our pediatrician (who happens to have been MY pediatrician!) and they decided that he needed to go in first thing on monday for a weight and jaundice check. when they weighed him at the pediatrician's office, he weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces, so i am thoroughly convinced that the home nurse's scale was off and caused a whole lot of unnecessary concern. oh well. he is still a little guy, measuring in the 25th percentile for height, weight, and head size. but to be fair, he's being measured against full term babies, not early birds like himself. it only took a full day's worth of feedings using the manual pump for us to go to babies r us and buy the industrial strength pump we had registered for. and of course as soon as we got home from the store with our new gadget, guess who decides he'll nurse again??? but it didn't last long. we got through 2 feedings before he was back to being fussy and refusing. and that's how we continue - trying to nurse but end up giving a bottle of pumped milk. we're not giving up!