By Emily McRoberts

My breastfeeding journey started with my 26 weeker in the NICU in December of 2017. My son Graham lived for 19 days and I was able to pump exclusively for him while he was alive. After he passed I was able to donate my extra 500 ounces of milk to The Mother’s Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes (Huge shout of to them for all their grief support!).

My husband and I were fortunate enough to get pregnant again and our daughter Paige was born at 36 weeks via c-section (scheduled due to my emergent c-section with my son) in October 2019. Being early she struggled to latch properly and was sleepy so I started pumping in the hospital and doing expressed milk syringe feeds and paced bottle feeds. We did use one bottle of donor milk since the IBCLC was concerned about a 12% weight loss which obviously was due to the fluids I was given in the OR. I struggled to get her to latch and thankfully I had selected a breastfeeding friendly Ped who sent me to her CLC. We continued the paced feeds for a week before I was able to use a nipple shield to bring my daughter to the breast. I’m so thankful for finding your Badass Breastfeeding Podcast around this time because I was crying and throwing it across the room. I successfully weaned her of the shield and we haven’t looked back since.

Fast forward to present day and my almost 3 year old is still nursing and the only supplementing I’ve ever used was that one bottle of donor milk during her first two days of life. I don’t think I could have done it without not only listening to the podcast and following both of you on instagram but also the support you have provided in DMs. The knowledge and confidence I’ve gained from you two has been so helpful and I plan to let her nurse until she wants to stop.