Lip tie

As some of you may know, Hazel has been a sucky nurser since she was born. Actually, she technically hasn't been a "sucky" nurser (haha). 

It started with lots of pain for me in the early weeks. Her latch looked good from the outside, and she obviously gained weight like a champ, so the advice I got was to just wait until I toughened up and/or her mouth grew a little bigger. (I will say here that we don't have a lactation consultant in town, nor a La Leche League. So I have been seeing the nurse that teaches the breastfeeding classes at the hospital. She is nice and helpful, but not extremely knowledgable). 

Well, after she measured in the 90th percentile in weight and height, and I was still in a lot of pain, I knew something else was going on. She "grew up" and her latch still looked good from the outside, so the nurse I work with was kind of stumped about what it could be. 

This is where I turned to my friend, the Internet. I searched her symptoms (pain for mama, short nursing sessions followed by sleep, gagging and choking on milk, and a smacking/clicking noise in the back of her throat) and came across the tongue tie/lip tie diagnosis. While I couldn't get a look under her tongue, I was able to look under her lip, and this is what I saw: 

A lip tie is having an excess of skin that holds your upper lip to your gums. It is hereditary, and both Grey and Justin have pretty big ones! It keeps her upper lip ticked while nursing, so she can't take my nipple deep in her mouth (sorry TMI male readers), and that's what's causing the clicking, which is putting traction on my nipples. It also causes her to get tired quickly because she has to use more muscles to swallow the milk, vs having it shoot right in the back of her throat. And, as you could guess, it also causes her to gag on her mouthfuls of milk. 

In my research I have found that it is very common (check yours!), and that it doesn't always affect breastfeeding. I also found that it is often missed or misdiagnosed because it was actually taken out of medical books because it does not affect bottle feeding. As breastfeeding is coming back around as being more popular, it is gaining traction in the medical world. But, I live in the f-ing tundra, so no one knows about it here. 

By this point in my story, I have gotten no answers from the nurse or my pediatrician about my continued pain, her short nursing sessions and choking, and I was frustrated. I had an instinctive feeling that something else was going on, but I didn't want to be the person that just reads symptoms on the Internet and is convinced that is what is wrong. So, I emailed two doctors that I found online, one in NYC and one in the UK. They both said it was a for sure lip tie, with a possible tongue tie, too. Finally, a possible answer!

I immediately got an appointment with our pediatrician to get a referral to a specialist to get it taken care of; I knew from a Facebook Alpena breastfeeding group that no one revises ties in Alpena. I was discouraged, however, to find that I would need to wait up to 14 days to get preapproval to go to a spcialist in Petoskey. My deadline to go back to work was fast approaching, and I was nervous. 

Well, luckily the referral went through in 6 days, and I got right in for an appointment. We went over as a family (minus crazy man) on Tuesday of last week and got it snipped. But it wasn't just as easy as getting it snipped as I had read on the Internet; Hazel had such a wide tie that the lip wouldn't stop bleeding. While tongue ties have very little bleeding and complications, and many nurse right away and it's almost immediately better, lip ties are much more complicated. They bleed more and can reattach. I knew all this ahead of time, but I wasn't prepared for how much would be needed to stop the bleeding. I think Hazel was a special case, and not in the "normal" realm, because she needed a chemical burn, cauterizing, and one stitch to stop the bleeding (and the doctor said that she usually only does one of those three). This all happened while Justin helped to hold her down with the nurse. It lasted about 5 minutes in total, and it was the worse thing ever. But, I figured that if this is what it takes, we will bear through it. 

The specialist said that nursing "should" be almost immediately better. Well, that was definitely not the case for us. Actually, it hurts a lot worse than before we got it snipped. She can only nurse for, at the max, 3 minutes at a time. This consequently has her eating more frequently. Plus, her latch is visibly very poor. I have read that it could take a few weeks for the baby to fully heal, hence re-learn how to use their muscles in this new way. But, all I can think is - what if it's a case like before, where waiting does nothing but cause me pain and make me frustrated? What if there's something else wrong (tongue tie) and we don't catch it? Grr...

I am beside myself. This is why people quit breastfeeding. I am getting no answers from anyone up here, and the traction we have made is only because I have researched, pushed, and spent time on the phone with insurance to get things  expedited. 

We are going day-by-day at this point, not giving bottles (so as not to cause nipple confusion since it is like she is learning to nurse all over again) and nursing for ~2 minutes every two hours. She is still gaining weight, so she must be getting my hind milk (good thing I have an overproduction! More than enough milk plus 60+ oz in the freezer from when I have had to pump because she fell asleep before finishing). 

I will get in this week with the specialist in Petoskey for a follow-up, with our pediatrician, and with the nurse that teaches the breastfeeding classes. Since Hazel is still clicking when she nurses (and still gags), I am thinking she has a tongue tie too. The specialist looked last week and said she did not see one, but I don't know about that. I researched that there are posterior, or hidden, tongue ties that are harder to diagnose. Since things aren't getting better, I'm thinking (maybe hoping...?) that she has a tongue tie. 

I don't know why I'm posting all of this. Sometimes I feel like our blog (just like Facebook) can be only the bright and shiny parts of our life. Just like my sister Erica has posted on her blog lately, this just plain sucks! It's the worst! Good think Hazel is cute. Otherwise we would send her back :)