I was very challenged with everything after the birth of my third baby. I'd successfully breastfed my first two babies, but my third baby came with a new set of challenges. We struggled for the first eight weeks with insufficient weight gain and also low milk supply. When normal breastfeeding recommendations weren't helping my baby to transfer more milk, a lactation nurse from UCH recommended we see a speech patholigist. There it was determined that my baby had specific oral motor weaknesses that were keeping her from nursing well. I was given exercises to do with her to improve her strength and get her nursing well. It was great to finally have an answer, however, on top of all of this, my husband was getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan and I had two other children to care for. I wanted so much to suceed at breastfeeding and for everything to be fine. I went looking for an IBCLC on the internet who would come to my house and help me. I found Stephanie Albana and she was a God-send. When she came for a home visit, she was able to get a clear picture of my situation. She could see that I had a lot of time limitations but her knowledge and experience enabled her create a tailored plan that was effective and doable for me. She wrote it all out for me -- how long and how often to pump, and what to do with the expressed milk. She gave me guidelines to help me gradually decrease the pumping and supplementing and she kept in touch with me and offered guidance in the following weeks. It took a month but I was able to rebuild my milk supply, exclusively breastfeed, and my baby has been gaining weight perfectly ever since. My baby girl is now ten months old and I am happy to say that she is still nursing.

- Jordan