Thursday, September 15, 2011

Possible TMI? Oh well.



Have I mentioned lately that I hate PKU?  It gets in the way of my life.

Avery has to drink a medical formula every day to maintain the right amount of phenylalanine.  The amount that she needs changes about every week or two so one week she'll need 4 oz. a day, then 5 then 7.5....  it just depends on what her phenylalanine levels are.  

So the point of this is to say that she gets a varied amount of formula in bottles and the rest of the day she is breastfed.  But all the diet changes have taken a toll on my milk supply and folks, I think I'm drying up over here.  It's like it happened overnight.  We saw the pediatrician Friday and because Avery is not gaining weight properly, he recommended I quit breastfeeding altogether and go to formula.  But to him I roll my eyes and say "But dude, this baby has PKU and it is much more complicated than that."  And then I called Avery's dietitian who fixes problems like these.  My boobs must be on the pediatrician's side because they've up and quit on me and my baby is hungry!  So now I have to mix medical formula with regular baby formula like Similac to make up for my lacking lactation.  

In the meantime, I'm doing everything I can to increase the milk supply up in here.  I've dedicated my free time to making up cheers for the boobs and thinking happy thoughts.  I invested a small fortune in herbal remedies and oatmeal and drank as much water as I could handle.  If I can locate flax seed meal and brewer's yeast, I'm making lactation cookies.

I am determined to fight this because if I have to quit breastfeeding because of PKU I'm going to be pissed.  If it was for any other reason, I don't think I would care so much but I want to be better than PKU and right now that means breastfeeding even though it freaking sucks.

6 comments:

Kellie said...

Looks like you've done your homework as to what to do to get your supply back up. It's awesome that you're fighting for it!

Rich and Brianne said...

I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Very crappy. Do you have a good breast pump? When my supply started to go down I tried pumping every 2-3 hours and it seemed to help. Good luck--sounds like you're trying everything, and I hope you win!!

Derek and Jen said...

My mom told me to drink a beer... :)

Jamie said...

See if your dietician can get you a cheap deal on renting a hospital breast pump!!NOW!!!

Maria said...

Can you use a SNS for the formula instead of bottles?

Nick and Jaimee said...

I second the pump idea. You can pump when you have to feed her a bottle and then you can keep up your supply and have some saved for later. Good luck!