April Spotlight: Tiana Rogers’ Story
Read below for the story of Tiana Rogers, a BMBFA Mommy Ambassador who has experienced three challenging, insightful breastfeeding experiences with her children Angel, Aaron and Le’iahni.
Generational Start: A Beginning to Building an Unknown Bond
“My name is Tiana, and I am a mother of three wonderful, creative and inspiring Blessings. I first became aware of breastfeeding when my mother had my baby brother, when I was six years old. I was so interested in the whys and hows. I probably had tons of questions in my little head, and I even remember wanting to breastfeed my baby dolls! Fast forward a bit and I did get a chance to ask those questions to everyone in the family and have them answered when my older cousin had her first baby.
Fourteen years later, I would birth my first child, Angel, and begin my first breastfeeding experience. I always tell her she was meant to be the oldest, because I feel I learned so much and that she was a very patient baby. I also lived with my mom at the time, which was very helpful to me. My first breastfeeding journey lasted nine months with her.
With my 2nd child, Aaron, my journey began a bit more panicked and worried which was a total 360 from what I had already experienced. It was discovered after only a few hours and getting him to latch twice for breastfeeding that he was diagnosed with Pneumonia at birth, and had to be incubated due to low oxygen saturation (his blood was not properly absorbing oxygen). So even though I felt that I may not be able to breast feed him the NICU, the nurse encouraged me to pump at the hospital or at home and gave me many of the supplies that I needed to pump and store milk. So I did, until I had ample amounts at the hospital, my freezer and even his grandmother’s house!
Eventually, they began to wean him off the oxygen and they started to give him small amounts of milk through his tube. Two weeks later, he was given 2 ounce bottles. His last week in the NICU, I was
finally able to latch him to the breast again. That journey lasted 26 months.
My little mini-me (Le’iahni) is my current breastfeeding baby. She also gave me a run for my money!
She was the first to be born by emergency C-section. I didn’t see her until over eight hours later, and by then she had already started on a formula given by the staff at the hospital.
For the first 15 to 20 minutes it was difficult to get her latched, but I had help from my Doula (Robena). For the five days that we were in the hospital and probably a week and a half after, I continued with breast milk and formula, and eventually was able to wean her off the formula and just do breast milk only. She is currently 18 Months and we are still on our journey! I am constantly gathering new information from my BMBFA family and expanding my support system, so that I and my Blessings stay healthy and uplifted, no matter where this journey takes us or how long it lasts.”