Hi Dawn,

It does feel great to see my milk increase, however, I am finding that there are some days where I bring in more milk than others.

I am drinking 15-18 glasses of water a day. I feel like I am peeing all the time.

Did you have to use lots of warm towels and do lots of massaging to get your milk to flow? My husband is pretty excited about all of this so he is helping with the massaging.

I am seeing a decent flow but eventually the flow drops off and only picks up if I use warm water and lots of massaging. There are times when my breast feels full but nothing really flows. Should I be concerned? Did anyone else experience this?

I am still getting 1.5 to 2 ounces a day but would like to help increase the flow. I am still on the Dom, herbs and oatmeal.

Hugs to all,
M

Hi M,

You're doing GREAT!!! Congratulations!

I just want to mention that if you can drink to thirst, 6-8 glasses of water per day, it should be sufficient. Drinking excessive amounts of water can actually work against you. Try cutting back to 8 full glasses and see how that goes ok?

Keep up the good work!

fondly,

I haven't had to use warm towels or anything to get things going. Every person is different. And I have been pumping more than 2 months, so that's why I have so much milk. Massaging is good to do. Some people recommend soothies, heated in the microwave, to help with letdown. I always try to pump for 15 minutes, except for my first session of the day. That one's usually longer. I find that it flows well for 5 minutes, than slows down. Since I have been doing this awhile, it can now go well for up to 10 minutes, but still, sometimes it's only 5-7 minutes. I find that often I have more than one letdown, even sometimes having one right at the 15 minute mark. The key, I think, is to just relax and not think about what's going on. I watch tv. I have a cordless headset telephone, and I talk on the phone while pumping. Granted, there's not a lot you can do while pumping, but even just watching tv can take your mind away at least a little.
I know that it can also help to kind of press into the side of my breast, towards the end, when things are slowing down. I don't know exactly how to describe it. I just remember reading in Dr Newman's book about getting the last of the milk out when you were breastfeeding. I'd look it up in the book, but I lent it to my SIL.
I wish I could help you more. You will increase your supply, it's just hard to wait for it.
DawnL

Hi,

I reached two ounces again yesterday.

Thanks for the tip on the water. I am soooo thirsty and nothing quenches my thirst but water. I had a complete physical prior to the protocol so I know that I don?t have Diabetes or anything like that. I will try to cut back and see what happens.

Lenore, I have been meaning to ask you how your protocol is coming since you started it again? You mentioned that Adam was born GS and the baby due in November is due via IM what exactly do those initials mean?

Dawn, I can hardly believe that you have hit 25 ounces. Way to go!

You mentioned that a baby was not in sight at this time. After seven years and getting nowhere with our agency we posted on Adoption.com. Our birth mom found us on Adoption.coms ParentProfiles. She found us within 18 hours of posting our profile. During the last 8 months we have had to turn away 8 different birth families and finally decided to take our site off because it was so hard to say no to so many people. In the last situation the last family begged me to please take their unborn son because they knew that we were the family that they had been looking for. There are two other birth families who know that we are adopting in April however they want to stay in touch just in case we can handle a second child in August or September. We have been very careful regarding our relationship with the other families and have made a point to remind them that we feel this situation will go through and we may not be able to handle two infants so close in age. We have encouraged them to find other families.

We found that posting on ParentProfiles was a worthwhile investment. The monthly fee may be tax deductible because it will fall under advertising. The set up cost is minimal. Had we known or trusted the site we could have saved an awful lot of money because our agency has turned out to be a real bust. In short we feel like they took our money two years ago and have nothing to show for it.

If you want to discuss ParentProfiles or anything else for that matter feel free to drop me an e-mail at:

Luv2daydream2002 at yahoo.com

M

I am not Lenore but I can answer the questions for you.
GS means a Gestational Surrogate. It was Lenores egg and her hubbys sperm. The surrogate carried there embryo to term. She had her beautiful son. Now she has another one due the same way.IM stands for Intended Mother.. Which is what Lenore is...

Thanks Nona,

Our Bmom is considering her options to be a surrogate at a later time in life.

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have people in our lives willing to do what it takes to help those of us who want a family. Our bmom is an incrediblely loving person.. Baby number one isn't here yet and she is offering to have a second one for us next year.

What a blessing...
hugs to all,
M

Hello,
When I was pumping and taking the domperidone, after 5 weeks I was still just seeing drops, so I went back on the NG protocol, for the last 5 months. The fact that you did the protocol for only 34 days, you are doing great.
Are you using the PIS or the Whittlestone? I did find using a heating pad prior to pumping helped, you can also buy Soothies, that you can heat in the microwave and put in your bra, instead of the mess of wet towels all the time. I never got the hang of hand expressing with the Marmet technique, but if you can get someone to show you how, you may find that after pumping you can get some more milk out with this technique of hand expressing. It takes time to build up a supply, you are really doing great if you are pumping 2 ounces now.
Some women who used the PIS pump found that they had to increase the suction to get all their milk out, I find that if I went above medium it hurt too much. You don't want to cause tissue damage either to your breast or nipple. I am so glad your hubby is helping you, mine is really not into any of this, you are lucky. Take care, Cathy