Melons.
Who-haas.
The girls.
Ta-tas.
Chesticles.
Boobies.
Breasts.
Names for the two life long partners-in-crime make everyone's eyes gaze downward. And what's worse is when you talk about breastfeeding, For those of you who have never had to experience it, do not be fooled as I was. When people vaguely mentioned that "breastfeeding was hard, but so worth the effort," I had always imagined the difficulty came from time management or maybe not wanting to nurse in public, or the obvious waking in the middle-of-the-night feedings. Nowhere, in my ignorant little mind, had I ever imagined breastfeeding to be painful. Wait, not just painful, but excruciatingly tormenting.
Tony had asked me once if breastfeeding was really as bad as child birth. My answer was, and still is, it's like comparing apples to oranges. With a natural child-birth, at least you know it will all end soon- whether it be the baby coming out or you dying. With breast feeding however, it's allowing your already tender, sore, and even bleeding nipples to be put into a living suction machine (if you can imagine the scream sucker from Monsters Inc.) for half an hour every 3 hours. Oh, it hurts so bad that you dread the moment when your precious, beautiful baby wakes up. I cannot tell you how sad that feeling is. You just spent 9 months making something that you feel you cannot actually enjoy because every time she is awake, you're in pain.
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| I absolutely hate this picture, but it's how I looked for several weeks. |
And the worst part is that previous moms know about this! I have never appreciated my mom more than those three weeks she was here, especially trying to cheer me on during the most embarassingly vulnerable and exposing position I was in. To know that she endured continuous distress for me while I was a baby is humbling. Tony and I decided we owe our mothers much better Mother's Day gifts from now on. We may even need to make them ultra nice just to make up for all the crappy hand-print ones from childhood.
Now everyone says to tough it out for two weeks and you'll be good. Two weeks?! I don't know if you know this, but that's 14 days! Assuming your baby eats maybe 10 times in a 24 hour period, that equates to 140 feedings! With the pain I was experiencing, there's no way I could have done that.
Every person is different; this includes pain tolerance levels. Maybe mine is extremly low or maybe I have an infection or something, but breastfeeding caused extreme discomfort. So much that I just made fists and shook while Bridget ate. I endured it for a little while. Eyes closed, shaking, drenched in cold sweat, whimpering. After a few days I experienced LoM, or Lack of Motherhood. I couldn't do it. I was not strong enough, nor willing to endure it any longer. I gave in to the dreaded formula and of course my food-motivated angel accepted the bottle as her next loving mother. We only needed to give her one bottle of it though. I just needed one break, just for one night.
Since then I have been pumping, giving her everything I can without the dread.
Guys. The breast pump is one of the greatest inventions ever made. Yes it makes you feel like a cow, but it's consistent (no baby who falls asleep and wakes up with a jerk thereby tearing off the nipple) and helps nipples heal. Down side? You have to make time for it. You can't pump and feed or care for a crying baby at the same time. Don't get me wrong, my nipples still hurt really bad, but at least it subsides after 10 minutes.
I'v been running into an issue though: my milk seems to be lessening with each passing day.
So what is the whole point of this read? It's a shout out to all those who endured, those who could look into their tiny baby's eyes and not think of themselves, those who knew that breastfeeding would be worth it in the end.
...(1 week later)...
I need to change, explain, and verify what I have previously written. Yes, that pain was real and I was not just being a total wimp. Maybe a little wimp, but I was not crazy; I had/have thrush. Thrush is a very common fungal infection occurring in humid places that can cause pain when left untreated for a long time.
Need I mention that I had told both my OB and the pediatrician about my pain, and they both basically said suck it up without even a second glance? Ahh... TIG. (For those of you back home, this stands for This Is Grenada- a slang way of saying "of course this would happen here") So after some research, Tony found the constant burning nipples symptom to possibly be thrush, not to mention we could see a white film developing on the nipples. So off to the SGU clinic I went where the nurse told me burning could be very normal for breastfeeding mothers, at least it was for her, but then it went away! (Well good for you honey, it's been 3 and a half weeks and my burning isn't going away.) The "doctor" - I put the quotes on because I was seen by someone wearing a vet school lab coat and looked everything up on her phone after I told her what I thought it was- gave me medication, but not the go-to Nystatin that is given in the states. After a quick internet search, Tony decided to email his school adviser who is a pharmacology professor. She said DO NOT take the medicine prescribed. The sweet professor then called to every pharmacy on the island looking for Nystatin for Bridget and another medicine for me. We received the medicines the next day. She checked in three days later to see how we were doing- little improvement meant my infection was too deep and I should take the medicine that was originally prescribed. So now we're almost a week on drugs. Bridget has had pretty bad gas build up resulting in scary-loud farts (at first I didn't believe it wasn't Tony) and some of my infection has cleared up. Now at least my boobs don't burn all the time. The pump hurts now though. The nips are super sensitive still. Let's just keep praying they'll toughen up.
...2 months later...
Bridget is now 3 months old and I still pump four times a day, supplementing with formula. I am so incredibly grateful that we live in an age with baby formula otherwise I'm pretty sure Bridget would have starved to death. The medicines have been working fabulously although it has taken quite a bit of time. Future moms out there: if you ever have a "burning" sensation, that is not normal. Pinching or soreness, sure, but never burning. Also, thrush is treated very quickly in the states, never left alone for several weeks being told to suck it up. That made the infection become so much worse. After using the Nystatin for 2 weeks, the medicine wasn't clearing me up, although it did work in Bridget. I went in to Dr. Lowe, Bridget's pediatrician who also practices internal medicine on adults. She prescribed three different medicines to really hit the thrush hard. Over the past month I have slowly been getting better. Pumping is rarely painful, they're a normal color and don't hurt when I put a bra on. I hope I can begin breast feeding in the next month. It'll take time to build up the proper milk supply, but supply and demand, right?
This whole ordeal has been the absolute hardest part of having a baby. The LoM can be debilitating and overall defeating. I am thankful for the prayers I know my family has offered that have given me so much strength to persevere.
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