Jeannie Mai Jenkins is keeping it real.
More than four months after welcoming her first child with Jeezy, The Real co-host is returning to YouTube with a personal video about her motherhood journey.
In an exclusive preview of her May 19 Hello Hunnay episode produced by Kin Networks, Jeannie shared her difficult breastfeeding experience in honest detail.
"For the past three months, I've been by myself with my own little thoughts, trying my hardest to get any squeeze of milk possible outside my breasts," she began. "I've had nobody to talk to about it so you're welcome. Welcome to the party."
In the video, Jeannie recalled the moments after baby Monaco was born. Within minutes, a nurse took her newborn and placed her underneath Jeannie's breast. "I saw Monaco's poor little face and she just started doing the thing," she said. "That was when I felt I need to breastfeed. I didn't feel like I had an option. I just felt like this is what you do."
Citing her Capricorn birth sign, Jeannie joked that she is very goal oriented and wanted to make breastfeeding work. But once she returned home from the hospital, the talk-show host became frustrated when she tried to breastfeed and nothing came out.
As she took her vitamins, drank tea, chewed gummies and tried to pump milk, Jeannie said she was only getting one ounce of milk for her baby. The process left her experiencing a variety of emotions.
"It was really, really, really upsetting," she said. "You feel so defeated when your baby's hungry. You're not producing enough for the baby. You're seeing all these commercials and other women and even Instagram showing these amazing pictures of moms bonding with their kids breastfeeding."
Jeannie said that discovering Haakaa's Gen 2 Pump "saved my life" and allowed her to produce more milk. Haakaa is also sponsoring the episode.
As for why Jeannie wanted to share her story, the Chief Brand Officer of Owl's Brew said she wanted to get more ideas from moms and to remind others that they aren't alone.
"This is the first time I get to connect with moms," she said. "I really just want to hear so much from everybody out there and I have so much to learn."