A Post About my Boobs

My parents were in town over the weekend, which was exciting for all involved.  The new grandparents absolutely adore their grandson, Colin was happy to have other people to hold him all day long, and Joe and I were thrilled to catch up on a little sleep while letting Grandma coddle the baby.  Well, whenever he wasn't attached to my boobs that is.Breastfeeding has become more difficult the past week or so as my right nipple has become disgustingly cracked and horrendously painful.  I think this is part non-stop nursing and mostly my desire to use my hands while feeding him for the umpteenth time and thus getting a poor latch every time.  It got to the point over the weekend where Colin was crying trying to latch and I was crying at the pain of him finally getting attached.  Whereas his nursing on the left side feels like little nibbles, nursing on the right side feels like someone is taking a stapler repeatedly to my nipple.  Making matters worse, I played phone tag with the lactation consultants at my hospital for five days before finally scouring kellymom, several newborn books, and calling all the nursing mothers I know to try to find a way to remedy this problem.  I finally got a call back from the lactation consultant yesterday afternoon.  She was appalled that at two weeks my nipple was still cracked open, but hello, maybe if anyone had been around to help I could have fixed this earlier.The plan as of now is that I'm getting toward the end of twenty-four hours of exclusively nursing on the left side while pumping on the right.  It was worth a try, but I have fed him three times on right simply because he's so hungry and can't get enough from the left side alone.  He was on for over an hour last night and kept falling asleep then crying for more.  

Maybe a sane person would have taken the ounce + that came out into the pump, put it in a bottle, and fed it to her obviously starving child.  Me?  I kept putting him back on the empty left breast, stubbornly refusing to 'confuse' my child with the nipple of a bottle.  Finally I gave up and put him on the sore right side, which was considerably less sore after eight hours of pumping, he ate greedily for ten minutes and then fell asleep for four hours straight.

So far today I have pumped three whole precious ounces out of my right breast and stuck it in the freezer for a rainy day.  Colin still hasn't had a bottle, because I clearly take the advice of not giving him one until at least four weeks *waaay* too seriously, but he has gotten what was left on that side a couple of times to help tide him over.  In the meantime, obviously, my good left side is getting a little sore from him constantly being attached to it, but I think we're almost to the point where both sides will be in working order.

Now that the sore side is healing, I'm routinely taking the time to latch him on properly, not moving my hands while he eats to make sure he stays on correctly, soaking the nipple in warm salt water post feeding, smothering it in lanolin, and then wearing a breast shell over it to air it out and keep my shirt away from it.  All of this means what had been hours of tedious nursing has become hours of nursing followed by pumping followed by a ridiculous routine that keeps me up even longer in the middle of the night, when even 5 minutes of lost sleep mean the difference between sanity and losing my ever-loving mind.

At this point, I can certainly understand why people give up nursing so soon.  It's hard.  It hurts.  My son can't be near me without rooting around frantically, which means while others get to cuddle with him I get to sit in a chair for half an hour with him attached to my chest.  I thought going in that I understood what "every two hours" meant, but I'm learning that it really means "whenever and every single time" Colin shows an interest in eating.  

Luckily, Joe is incredibly supportive and I'm committed to making this work.  I've decided that if giving Colin a bottle means saving me from losing my mind I'm going to do it.  And I keep repeating to myself that it really can only get better.  God please tell me it just gets easier.  Either way he's worth it, and his weight gain at his two week check up today proves that it's working.