On September 3rd, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (Haylie Peyton) via an outdoor water birth at home. It was everything I had hoped for and more. The birth went so well that I was overcome with this feeling that EVERYTHING would go as planned. I quickly learned that wasn’t the case.

Haylie was nursing around the clock yet she always seemed hungry. She would nurse for hours and still not get full. At one point she hung from my breasts for 15 hours straight, only coming off to switch sides. You’d think she’d be full.

During this time I dealt with horribly cracked nipples, latch problems, painful letdown, engorgement, and even mastitis (which I suffered through 3 times). It hurt to nurse but I had to get past it. After all, feeding my baby was most important.

As usual, we would get her weighed weekly at her pediatricians office to make sure she was gaining weight. At one point she had gone up to 7 lbs 11 oz but a few days later that extra weight was off of her.. The day she was born she weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and at 5 1/2 weeks old she was back to 7 lbs 7 oz and was labeled as “failure to thrive”. My poor little girl looked so anorexic. She was all skin and bones.

At this point, we were pressured into supplementing her to get her weight up. In the meantime we were sent back to the pediatric cardiologists office to make sure her heart defect wasn’t what was causing her to not gain weight. She was born with a hole in her heart, but thankfully, that’s not what was causing it. It turns out that her latch was so bad that she couldn’t get enough out of my breasts to help her grow. This in turn decreased my milk supply drastically.

I continued putting her to the breast but would supplement her with a SNS. That way she’d get nourishment but would also get milk from me. Just not a lot. I would also pump after each nursing session in hopes of boosting my supply. On top of that I started taking fenugreek, more milk plus, reglan and motilium as well as LOTS of oatmeal. Nothing was working. I just couldn’t rebuild my supply. I tried SO hard for weeks. All I got out of it was the feeling of failure.

She was getting more and more formula, which made her sicker and sicker. We tried numerous different types of formula but she wasn’t/isn’t able to tolerate any of them. Even the prescription one that they now have her on called Pregestimil. Either she vomits profusely, or she has explosive diapers.

After many sleepless nights of me apologizing to my baby girl for failing her, and torturing her with formula that made her sick, I started looking into donor milk. I had a close friend donating to us but it wasn’t enough to keep her off of formula. So, I looked for more donors who would be willing to help us. I ended up finding a few different women to help out. At one point, we had received enough milk to keep Haylie off of formula for 3 weeks! These were the BEST 3 weeks ever!

At 13 weeks, she now weighs 12 pounds. She’s also VERY happy 99% of the time and no more vomiting or explosive diapers. The only tears I cried this time, were happy ones. This solidified what we as nursing mothers already know. That breast milk really is best! It’s so much easier for her to digest, she hasn’t been sick once (even though the rest of us have been), and she’s no longer in the danger zone with her weight.

The problem is, the women who have been donating to us, no longer have milk available. I feel like we’ve hit a brick wall. I went as far as talking to her pediatrician about it and she agreed that breast milk is a medical necessity for Haylie and tried getting Medicaid to cover the cost of donor milk from a milk bank. Sadly, the refused.

Now I have no milk for Haylie, no insurance helping us get milk, and no donors who are able to help us out right now. Which brings me to the point of sharing this. We’re desperately seeking donors who can help Haylie continue to thrive.

In order to keep her completely off of formula, it will take about 300 oz per week. Obviously that’s way more then any one person could provide so we’re seeking several donors who would be willing to help us out. It would mean the world to me as well as Haylie.

She doesn’t have any known allergies so donors don’t need to be on a special diet. She does very well on the donor milk she’s been given and most of the milk comes from moms who enjoy dairy on a daily basis.

If you have milk you’re looking to donate or are willing to pump, please consider Haylie as the recipient.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for considering us for your donation.

-Renee
cvilledoula@gmail.com