Today is a hard day

Today is a hard day. You see, I have shared my breastfeeding story/struggles in the past and today it all came thundering back to me.

My breastfeeding story, to me, has been one of trying and failing. I desperately wanted to breastfeed my babies and for one reason or another it didn’t work out. From bad latches, lip ties, low supply, pain etc. my breastfeeding journey only lasted around 6 weeks with my first two girls. It broke me. Crushed me. I still get pangs of guilt and sadness to this day. And I was so excited to have one more shot at a successful breastfeeding relationship with our third. But then everything changed when she was born 7 weeks early.

Instead of getting to snuggle and cuddle and feed my baby I formed a love/hate relationship with a pump. It was one of the things I didn’t think about when everything with her birth was unraveling but then shortly after she was born the nurse rolled in the medical grade pump. And since I couldn’t nurse her it became my mission to pump round the clock and get her the best possible nutrients to help her tiny little body fight and grow. It was the least I could do for kicking her out of my body far too early. I was able to provide more than enough for her and get a good freezer stash built up but I still desired to introduce nursing her when she was strong enough. We did all the things we could to help that cause while she was in the NICU. And once she came home we tried but it was hard. She was so little still and it was hard for her to spend that much energy eating. So we nursed every so often but my main relationship was still with the good ol pump.

I battled pain, infection, tears, open wounds and a hardcore case of mastitis coupled with an allergic reaction to medication and a permanently clogged duct. But it was worth it. It felt worth it until she came home and started needed a lot of my time. I was stressing myself out trying to get away to pump while also making sure she was properly cared for. It was also taking me away from my older girls who had not seen much of me during the 5 week NICU stay. I was being pulled in too many different directions, was dealing with postpartum depression and was struggling to stay afloat... something had to give.

So I made a decision to stop pumping. To nurse on occasion but no more being tied to a 2-3 hr timeframe of hooking myself up. It was a brutally hard decision and I wrestled with it, prayed about it, cried over it for a couple weeks before finally making the choice to stop. And I regret it to this day. You see here we are 5 months after that decision and my freezer has one day of milk for her left. I type that with tears rolling down my face. I feel like I have failed her. Like I didn’t try hard enough. Like I could have done more. I should have done more. And believe me, I have Googled and researched re-laction over and over again but its just too hard with our current life. So here we are are…I am proud of what I was able to give her, proud of the things I fought through to keep going and I know that there is NOTHING wrong with formula (my other two girls are super duper healthy and so so smart) but its more than just the milk, its a stage, its an experience that I won’t ever get. Its the end of a chapter of my life, having babies, and its so hard to close that door.

So today it will end. And I will cry more tears than I probably should. But I will try to remind myself to look down at that sweet baby girl and be proud of us, proud of her and remember just how far we have come the last 7 months.

Best of Blogs eBook from Babble

Way back when, seems like forever ago, I had a newborn baby that didn't want to breastfeed. The struggle of those first few months and the desire to breastfeed an unwilling child made for a tough time. A time that I felt like nobody talked about. So I decided to write a blog post about it. A post to hopefully help others that are in my same situation. Unless you have been there you just can't relate.

Flash forward to now and Babble, one of my favorite Mom resources, picked up my post on breastfeeding to publish in their new eBook, Parenting, Uncensored: Straight Talk from Real Moms and Dads on Breastfeeding. The eBook is a collection of posts on the subject of breastfeeding from several wonderful bloggers who have gone through one thing or another with breastfeeding.

"In twelve frank and funny essays, Parenting Uncensored gives a range of perspectives on an often controversial topic: breastfeeding. From Stefanie Wilder’s plea for everyone to stop judging one another to Ilana Wiles’s account of pumping in public (“You don’t know breast pump awkwardness until two 20 year-old guys are coordinating your pumping session over walkie talkies, then appearing to escort you to the back of the hair and make-up trailer and standing outside the front door … “), you’ll hopefully find a kindred spirit and even be inspired to join the conversation. Several of the essays in the book were chosen by the Babble community as the most compelling and helpful examination of the topic."

I am honored to be featured in this eBook and excited that more women will get a chance to read and relate to my personal story on breastfeeding. Its a topic that is heavily debated and one that no matter what your story women continually feel judged. Hopefully more and more mothers will be empowered by this eBook.

Check out the Babble page to learn more and purchase your eBook today!

We Survived Colic One Bounce at a Time

It is only now, 2 1/2 months removed, that I am able to write this post. Mainly for fear of jinxing and also to keep those rough rough days as a memory...something that is far in the past.

But I also want to document it and share because its tough but it does get better.


While I was pregnant I had all these images of what life would be like with our baby girl. There was a lot of snuggling, playing, and smiles. Never did it cross my mind that my baby would be colicky. Never. So much in fact that I didn't even contemplate what life would be like with a crying baby. Because my baby wouldn't cry that much. Right.

As a first time mom I will admit I was not prepared for those first few months. Yes, I read books and blogs and everything in between but nothing prepares you for a new baby, let alone a new baby that I lovingly classified as high needs.

I had an amazing pregnancy, I actually really miss being pregnant sometimes. And I also had a great natural labor and birth experience. I was really lucky. And a part of me knew that it couldn't be all blue skies and rainbows. But I didn't know how hard it was really going to get.



From the beginning we had problems with breastfeeding that took a toll on my relationship with my daughter. I didn't get that loving bonding connection from nursing, instead it was screaming and lots of crying for both of us.

But I soon realized that the crying wasn't just tied to being hungry. She started to fight eating, like she was in pain. We found out she had silent reflux. So we put her on medicine. The feeding got better but the crying didn't.



It seemed like all she did was cry. Her happy moments were few and far between. And it was taxing. I was home alone, in my pajamas, not having showered in days with an inconsolable baby. Fun right! Everything I had imagined.

But it would get better. This is only a short time. Its just a phase. All things people would say to me. But I didn't want to hear it because I was in the thick of it. And tomorrow seemed like an eternity away.

I spent most of my evenings after Molly went to bed crying. Crying because I no longer had a life. Crying because I felt like a terrible mother. Crying because my baby wasn't happy. Crying because I was not having the first time mom experience I thought I would. Crying because this was so incredibly hard.



I was afraid to leave the house. Afraid to be that Mom with the screaming baby in a public place with everybody looking as she tried to calm her child. Molly didn't care much for the carseat. Or the stroller. Or the carriers/slings. I felt like I was stuck.

We found a few things that would calm Molly down. Bouncing on the exercise ball was her favorite. And I spent most of my days at home, on the ball, bouncing. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Should I stop for one little second her calm face would turn and the screaming would begin. (I hate the sight of that ball -- ab workouts on an exercise ball will never be the same)



But it would get better. It had to.

Countless emails to the doctor. Hours upon hours spent searching online for answers. Tons of money spent buying this and that hoping it would make her happy. Hoping it would flip the switch. All the while, bouncing. Bouncing to survive.

The 12 week mark came and went. The 3 month mark came and went. The colic stayed. Come on! Everything I read said it would magically go away by now. But it didn't. So we bounced.

And then finally. One day. A breakthrough! We switched her formula to a non-dairy specialty formula and voila! All of a sudden she was happy. Our 20 minutes of happy time turned into hours. She started playing with her toys and rolling around on the floor. A personality started to form that we hadn't seen. Our little girl was changing into a different baby. A fun baby. That was such an amazing transition. 




Day by day as she got older more and more of her playfulness and happiness would come out. The bouncing stopped. The exercise ball got put in another room because we didn't need it. Our baby girl was so happy.

They were right. It got better. It passed. We survived.


So for all those moms out there, new or experienced. Don't hate what I am about to say. IT DOES GET BETTER. So hang in there. Try and remember that you are a mother to that baby for a reason. God sent your specific baby to you, and only you because you are meant to raise that child. So hang in there.

Molly is unbelievable. She is more than we ever could have imagined. She makes us so incredibly happy and fulfilled each and every day. Its still hard. It will always be hard. But we are cherishing every moment because time is fleeting and even the good times are just phases.



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Disclaimer: I am not saying that a formula switch works for all babies. I also want to make sure that this doesn't come across as though I did not love my daughter in those first months. I did, I loved her very much. It was just a hard time for both of us. One we can look back on as a journey we went through together and now we are on the other side.


If you have any questions please comment below or email me at chasinghallie@gmail.com

the breastfeeding truth

My goal when writing posts about motherhood has been, from post #1, to be honest and not paint this mom picture in an overly cheesy and "everything is perfect" light. The main reason being my own jaded idea of what being a new parent was going to be like based on other peoples depiction of this time. Yes, motherhood and having a newborn is amazing and people should share all the special moments but I wanted to share those special ones and the not so special ones to give it some perspective.

So in keeping with this goal I wanted to write this post about breastfeeding. And I hope that I don't get too harshly reprimanded for my story.

Before I was pregnant I didn't have strong feelings about breastfeeding or not. Then when I got pregnant I knew I wanted to breastfeed but that was the extent of it. And I definitely didn't connect with the "magic" that other Moms would talk about. I didn't get caught up in the breastfeeding mantra. I wanted to breastfeed and I was going to until I didn't. As my pregnancy went on, and I read more, my desire to breastfeed became a little stronger and I made the goal of wanting to breastfeed for at least 1 year. I still kind of cringed at the idea of nursing in public and making my decision so public. Those women that just whipped out their boobs and started nursing no matter where were a little too radical for me.

Unfortunately I read nothing about how hard breastfeeding actually is. I thought my baby would just naturally latch on and that was that. I had not come across any stories about how trying and exhausting and difficult it could be. Because of this I decided not to take a class on breastfeeding or research more than the tiny chapter in my baby book. I did read though that a natural unmedicated vaginal delivery made breastfeeding easier. My plan was to have Molly put on my chest right away and breastfeed almost immediately. That should set us up for success.

The reality...not so smooth.

My labor and delivery was great. Everything was as planned or better. I was in labor (extremely intense labor) for just 3 hours and it only took me 2 good pushes to bring Molly into this world. She was placed immediately on my chest and we spent a good 20 minutes together before she was taken away to clean, weigh and wrap up. As soon as that was done she was back in my arms ready to make our first attempt at nursing. It was a short attempt, she was sleepy and not really latching on and in the midst of all the excitement we quickly moved on when she didn't seem all that interested. I think that was the first mistake we made in our breastfeeding journey.

The next few days in the hospital we continued our attempts at breastfeeding, we met with the hospital lactation consultants several times a day, we used a nipple shield, we did skin to skin time etc. She wasn't quite getting it.

We took her home and continued our efforts. She was still not really latching well. We didn't give up. We had a breakdown around day 4 or 5. And then we had a breakthrough. She latched! And she latched well. Success! For the next 5 days or so our nursing sessions were amazing. She was latching and drinking and swallowing. It was wonderful. And then it wasn't. For some reason she just stopped latching. And for some reason I wasn't producing. It was a catch 22. She didn't latch on for long because not enough milk was coming out and I wasn't producing enough because she wasn't draining me. It was heartbreaking because she was hungry, really hungry. She was crying and screaming because she wanted to eat. And despite my best efforts my body wasn't giving her what she needed. So we decided to supplement. This was a very hard decision and one that my husband and I made together after a lot of discussion. Our final deciding factor, our baby is hungry and she needs to eat.

The plan of action was to breastfeed as much as she would tolerate then supplement with formula until she was full (she never got the milk drunk full from exclusively breastfeeding). Then I would pump as much as I could to try and get my milk supply up. As the days wore on she got worse and worse at latching and would just scream when I tried to get her to nurse. It was killing me. All I wanted to do was feed my child naturally. To be able to whip out a boob and bond as my baby nursed from me. But it wasn't happening.

The next step, call a lactation consultant. She came out to our house, spent a couple hours with us and assessed the situation. In the end, the only real hope was to get my supply up with the idea that Molly would start to latch again once plenty of milk was offered. The problem, to get your supply up you have to pump around 10 times a day. 10 times! I tried my best and felt like I was pumping around the clock but I was only able to get in about 5 or 6 pump sessions (Molly liked to be held around the clock and would cry if not). More supplementing was being done and at this point she was now about 60% formula and 40% breast milk. As the days wore on my supply was not getting any better. I got on a prescription medication that was supposed to help along with lots of herbs and vitamins. No change. My body was failing me.

Over the next 6 weeks I continued to try. I would breastfeed her for her first feeding because that is when I was the most full. And I continued to pump during the day and bottle feed what I was producing. As the weeks wore on she latched on less and less in the morning feeding and my body was shutting down production.

The hardest most painful decision I have ever made came next. Breastfeeding was over. We moved to 100% formula.

I felt like a complete failure of a mother. The most basic of needs I was unable to provide. I cried and cried everyday. And not a day goes by still that I don't tear up thinking about it.

I want to be that Mom that pulls out her boob in doctors office waiting room. I want to be that Mom that has a freezer full of breast milk supply. I want to gush about the magic that is breastfeeding and the incredible bond I have with my baby during feedings. And I get insanely jealous when I see other Moms enjoying these things. Its not fair. Why not me? Why did my body fail me?

I wanted to write this post for all the Moms that have tried, with the best intentions, and it didn't work out. Because those Moms don't get support. We get too harshly criticized and ostracized by women who haven't had these obstacles and don't know what its like.

I want the very best for my child. And I tried, boy did I try. But it didn't work out. And I am doing my very best to move on and move past it. But its hard to admit failure and feel okay about it. Especially when it comes to your baby. But here I am, sharing. Sharing in hopes that this post might help someone else. Might pull someone else out of the darkness that takes over when you let yourself down.

In the end all you can do is your very best. And I know that Molly will be just as healthy and thriving on formula. I did what I could and I have to take solace in that.




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UPDATE: Thanks to my amazing readers this blog post is now being featured in an eBook from Babble. You can find more information here: http://www.babble.com/mom/best-of-blogs-campaign/books/