Breastfeeding = the hardest thing I've ever {tried} to do.

I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but breastfeeding is hard. If that sounded sarcastic, it was. Because the minute you say you want to breastfeed, every other mother in the world has something to say about it and of course, they always end with: "... but it's REALLY hard."
They weren't kidding! Sure, I knew it would be tough. I knew it would hurt. I knew that so many other mothers have tried and failed at breastfeeding. But none of that mattered to me, I just assumed I could do it. After all, I was am determined. I figured, as long as I didn't give up, I could do it.
WELL. I'm sure breastfeeding a regular, healthy, full-term newborn is hard enough. But I can't even put into words how hard it is to convince a baby with a sore, swollen belly, a recessed chin, acid reflux, and an almost-permanently arched back to hold still {and stop using his mom's boobs as a personal punching bag} long enough to latch on. Add the fact that he didn't even EAT for the first three weeks of his life, then went straight to the bottle, and you have a recipe for disaster.
The last few days were horrible, to say the least. Yesterday, lactation consultants, occupational therapists, and nurses were all trying to help Elliot latch on. We tried different positions, nipple shields, syringes, soothing, wrangling... the works. He WOULD. NOT. LATCH. I was ready to give up.
Sharon, our lactation consultant, even admitted that some babies just can't do it... and that Elliot could be one of those babies. "Exclusive pumping is still an option," she pointed out. Except for the fact that I'm not even making enough milk right now to feed him. I left the hospital yesterday thinking that my dreams were dashed and I was going to be feeding my son formula. I felt like a failure.
Today, when we got to the NICU, Elliot was starving. You could hear him screaming from down the hall. While his bottle was warming, we gave him a bath, put a fresh diaper and onesie on him, swaddled him up, did a few relaxation exercises with him that I learned yesterday from the occupational therapist, and... he was CALM. So my husband looked at me, with the bottle in his hand, and said, "Do you want to try to breastfeed him?" I looked down at Elliot skeptically and shrugged. Sure, why not. It couldn't hurt, right? I was preparing myself for the kicking, screaming banshee that my son turns into whenever we even ATTEMPT to get him close to the boob.
Magically, after only one or two tries, and the help of a nipple shield, he LATCHED RIGHT ON! He actually nursed happily for twenty-five minutes before falling asleep. You should've seen me- I was beaming ear-to-ear and kept saying to my husband, "Look at him! LOOK! He's sucking! And swallowing! And BREATHING!" I just couldn't believe it.
The feeding went so well, in fact, that we decided to give it at try again at his next feeding. And wouldn't you know it?! He latched right on and nursed until he fell asleep again! Sure, he might have been drooling a lot and I might have had milk soaking my bra and dripping down my belly, and my back might've felt like it was going to snap in half since I couldn't figure out how to recline my chair, but I was the HAPPIEST MAMA IN THE WORLD.
So there you have it. Apparently, I'm not a failure and there IS still hope. Who knows, today could've been a fluke and he could have a horrible day again tomorrow but... today, Elliot proved that he CAN latch on. It's just a matter of whether or not he WANTS to.
Seriously, though, don't let anyone tell you anything different: BREASTFEEDING IS HARD!!

Thanks to YOU, we are now on the FIRST PAGE!!!!!!!!! WOW! Thank you, thank you, thank you! And I also have an assortment of awards to accept. I shall be doing that shortly... probably cheating and putting them all in one post :)