The first days of parenthood weren’t everything Jeremy and Audrey Roloff thought they would be.
The Little People, Big World parents welcomed daughter Ember Jean in September, and are giving fans an intimate look at how they were hit from every side in the first days of figuring out how to keep their baby healthy.
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Not only did Audrey suffer repeated bouts of mastitis, an infection of the breast tissue that is both painful and makes breastfeeding incredibly difficult, but little Ember was born with tongue ties that required surgery so as not to prevent her from feeding well.
The infant was even starting to lose weight since she was born, which left both of her parents besides themselves.
The worst part for the couple was having to do exercises to keep the cut tongue ties from healing again, which was painful physically for Ember and painful emotional for Audrey and Jeremy.
“She’s just so young, and we’re already having to do something that hurts her,” Jeremy said.
Jeremy’s dad Matt Roloff had a hard time watching his kids suffer with their baby woes, but definitely knew from where they were coming.
“Seeing your kid hurt when you don’t want them to hurt, that’s a challenging time,” he said. “But seeing my kids go through it, like now you understand the heartache your mother and I went through when you were coming through the rags.”
Audrey was open about her difficulties breastfeeding on social media while going through it in November.
“l always thought breastfeeding was a choice,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “People would often ask me if l was going to breastfeed when I was pregnant and l always answered with a determined yes. But after Ember was born, l realized that for some people, it’s not a choice. My breastfeeding journey has not been easy. After sharing with you all a little bit about the struggles l have had feeding Ember, l realized that so many of you have gone through, or are currently going through, similar pains, heart aches, and challenges.”
She revealed that despite her desire to exclusively breastfeed her baby, it was originally not a possibility.
“l was devastated and even told by a pediatrician and lactation consultant that l would probably not ever be able to exclusively breastfeed Ember. She was having trouble gaining weight and they were concerned. They also thought l had insufficient granular tissue,” she said.
Two months later, Roloff said had been able to exclusively breastfeed Ember for the past 5 weeks, before developing mastitis again.
“l was reminded that even though this journey still poses its challenges, being able to feed my daughter from my own body brings me incomparable joy,” she added, saying that she hopes her story can encourage any other new moms having difficulty breastfeeding.”
Little People, Big World airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.
Photo credit: Instagram/Audrey Roloff
