As we prepared for Ethan’s arrival I started to get excited about breastfeeding. I was committed to raising our baby “green”. I went out and purchased nursing bras, went to a breastfeeding class and paid ahead of time to have a lactation consultant come support me in our home after his birth. I had heard of the challenge of breastfeeding from many moms  and wanted to be prepared ahead of time.  Finally on August 3, 2008, 10 days late, Ethan Paul Dumouchel, 8lbs 8 oz, arrived after a 13 ½ hr, unmedicated labour, with the support of our doula and Obstetrician. I remember that as soon as they put him on my chest, I felt such relief as I observed his perfect little face and ten fingers and toes. He was perfect and beautiful. His APGAR scores were awesome and they took us to our room right away. Through the night I tried nursing him several times as he woke up hungry to be fed. It was a holiday weekend and so the hospital lactation consultant was unavailable. We got Ethan to latch a few times but every time we would hear large “clucking” sounds and then he would fall off. I felt so frustrated as I listened to him scream. I thought the problem was that my breast was too large for his little mouth. I satisfied him as best I could by squeezing colostrum into his mouth. Matt, my husband and I had decided ahead of time that no formula was to be given to our baby and that we would spend as little time as possible in the hospital so we were eager to be discharged.  I remember the next morning as clear as day in my mind. I don’t think I will ever forget the words of the pediatrician who came to check him over in preparation to discharge us. “Did anyone tell you about his mouth?”, he asked. What we learned next was that Ethan was born with a cleft in his soft palate. This was the reason for the clucking sounds while breastfeeding; Ethan could not get a good seal while breastfeeding with a hole in the roof of his mouth; . I remember the horror that I felt as I listened to the doctor. Seeing my distress he quickly reassured me that it was “the best kind of cleft to have” because of how small it was. At the time neither Matt nor I knew what a cleft palate would mean for us or for Ethan. They discharged us after setting us up with an appointment with the “Cleft Palate Team” a few days later. The nurse was reluctant but I assured her that the lactation consultant that I had hired would be coming to the house that day to help me. My lactation consultant was wonderful. She got Ethan on my breast right away and although I felt him sucking, it wasn’t very hard and he would quickly fall asleep only to pull away screaming full of air a few moments later. She constantly reassured me that “all babies can breastfeed”. After the first night however, it was clear that it wasn’t working. My lactation consultant suggested nipple shields, whichseemed to do the trick in terms of getting Ethan to latch. He still seemed to struggle with gas from swallowing so much air through his cleft. After weighing him two days after birth, it was evident that Ethan wasn’t getting enough sucking on me. I began pumping and syringe feeding him. I would put him to breast first and let him suck for as long as he wanted and then I would syringe feed him. The “cleft palate team” came on the Thursday, four days after Ethan was born. I remember the words of the feeding specialist very clearly. “Only 1% of babies with a cleft palate successfully breastfeed. I am sorry you won’t be able to breastfeed your son. Does that make you feel disappointed?” To me her words were like a shotgun to my heart. One part of me immediately disliked her and wanted to prove her horribly wrong. The other part of me wanted to succumb to the disappointment and accept what she was saying and move on. I couldn’t even respond to her, I just stood and cried. I remember nothing else that she said that day. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the literature that they provided or to talk about surgeries etc, for weeks after. They gave us a bottle called a Haberman feeder which allows a baby to eat without sucking. I had been determined to avoid giving our baby a bottle for fear that he would prefer it over my breast. My lactation consultant told me that everything that was happening with Ethan was normal for a baby with a cleft palate and that she had helped many moms to successfully breastfeed post surgery if they kept offering the breast every time. I found it really hard to believe. I continued to pump and syringe feed every two hours until Ethan was about 10 days old. He hadn’t pooped since he was born and I was worried that he just wasn’t getting enough. I finally caved and gave him the bottle. It took Ethan thirty minutes to finish a bottle and he immediately pooped. We continued with this trend of giving him the bottle after offering him the breast. My lactation consultant kept encouraging me that we would be that 1% and that babies will always prefer the breast.

Ethan’s weight gain was slow and both the Cleft Palate Team (CPT)and some of the doctors discouraged my desire to breastfeed prior to bottle feeding at every turn. I felt as though they thought I was a bad mother for wanting to breastfeed. The feeding specialist from the CPT kept encouraging me to quit. When Ethan was six weeks he returned to his birth weight. I learned later that, whether breastfed or bottle fed, it’s normal for a baby with a cleft palate to have extremely slow weight gain and that it is common for them to not return to their birth weight until six weeks. I continued to encounter many challenges along the way. At nine weeks my milk supply dropped drastically down to nothing. A combination of exclusive pumping, PCOS and stress over Ethan’s slow weight gain forced us to have to supplement with organic formula. The first time we gave Ethan formula I cried. I felt like such a failure. Not only could I not successfully breastfeed our baby “normally”, I could not make enough milk for him. I tried everything and anything that I could. I tried Domperidone, Blessed Thistle and Fenugreek. I also took Goat’s Rue an herb tincture specially formulated for women with PCOS who are breastfeeding . It was shortly after this that my milk supply came back up a bit. Ethan began taking more and more formula and at three months his weight finally took off and started to catch up with other babies. During this time Ethan went on countless nursing strikes as he learned very quickly that the bottle was the easier way to get food. Each time my lactation consultant promised me that Ethan would come back to breast and he always did. I was determined to not let him forget how to latch. As much as I wanted to believe that someday, if I kept going, Ethan would breastfeed like a normal baby, it was a constant battle in my mind. It was that hope and desire that made me keep going every time I wanted to quit and just give him the bottle.  I tried not to take it personally when Ethan would reject the breast but I would often cry in frustration.  All along the way I struggled with blocked ducts, and sore, nipples from pumping. Every time I thought about stopping, my husband and my lactation consultant would encourage me on. When Ethan had finally started to catch up with his weight we introduced a supplementary nursing system (SNS). It was messy and awkward and most days Ethan wanted nothing to do with it, but it convinced him to come back to breast after one of the longest nursing strikes that we had ever had. It had been three weeks and he happily sucked away with his new gratification. I continued pumping and using the nipple shields, SNS and Haberman until Ethan was almost ten months old. At this point Ethan had surgery to repair his cleft palate. I pumped while he was in the hospital and sippy cup fed him after his surgery for about a week. In an effort to prevent him from doing too much sucking after his surgery I used the SNS, squeezing the milk into his mouth and offered the breast. He took to it immediately and refused to use the sippy cup. After three weeks the surgeon informed us that his mouth was healing nicely and he could now suck I pulled out the SNS and let Ethan suck away. The first time I felt Ethan suck on the nipple shield after his surgery I cried. I had no idea what a normal suck was supposed to feel like. I was amazed. Ethan had surgery May 25, 2009. For the entire month of June, I began cutting away pieces of the side of the nipple shield and then finally started to cut away pieces of the nipple. Every time I tried to offer my nipple without the shield Ethan would freak out. Finally on July 7, 2009 when Ethan was eleven months old, I slipped the nipple shield off when he wasn’t looking and he latched on and sucked away happily. It was at this moment that I breastfed my baby normally for the first time. I cried. I had known that I was always meant to breastfeed our child but I had doubts that it would ever happen.  Hope is a powerful motivator; it kept me going when I thought I had nothing left.

Today, Ethan is a happy, healthy, beautiful, fifteen month old. I nurse him anywhere from 3 to 4 times a day around my part-time teaching schedule. I plan to continue nursing until he is ready to quit. One of the complications of a cleft palate is malfunctioning Eustachian tubes. As such Ethan has tubes in his ears and will need to have them until the soft palate muscle allows the Eustachian tubes to function on their own. Until this time he is prone to ear infections. Breastfeeding as long as we have has helped us to be ear infection. I have never been so proud of anything that I have ever accomplished in my life as I have in the fact that Ethan and I did not give up. I feel joy and happiness every time I breastfeed my son. I am so eternally grateful for what we have accomplished and so proud of Ethan for how far he has come. I never would have breastfed my son if it hadn’t been for my lactation consultant and my wonderfully supportive husband. I now truly believe that “all babies were meant to breastfeed.”