ick

is how I'm feeling, hence the lack of a thousand words this morning. I've caught myself a nice case of mastitis and I've been feeling like warmed over baby poop sine yesterday when it hit nice and hard.

I'm on antibiotics, expressing milk and trying to break up the plugs in my ducts and taking it nice and easy. The worst of it is the fever and the simultaneous chills, oh yeah and the pain. I'm hoping to be back in fine form soon and I'll post the latest a thousand words next week

It sure takes a lot of work

A few weeks ago I posted about how hard breast feeding is. Having had to relearn how to get a proper latch once again I feel it bears repeating. Breast feeding is hard, it's painful to get the hang of and boy does it ever take up a lot of time.

The Bean was born weighing a whopping big 9lb 2.5oz and because she wasn't able to breastfeed for two hours after she joined us on the outside; the rest of our first day together was spent with her trying to catch up on those lost two hours when I was in recovery. The result was two very blistered nipples and very painful latches while in the hospital.

I have a theory about breast feeding in the hospital. The nurses are there to make sure that your baby is being fed and to get her latched on; not necessarily to sit with you for however long it takes for you to get the hang of holding the baby, bringing the baby to the breast, waiting until the baby's mouth is open wide enough and all the other little things that make up a good latch. These ladies have so many things to do that when they do come in to help it's to get it done fast and get back to whoever else is ringing them for help. Learning in that environment is near impossible. Since on top of the kamikaze breast feeding lessons you also have visitors coming in and out, nurses coming in to test vitals, and you're also trying to get acquainted with the little life you've been lugging around for the past nine months.

It wasn't until I was at home and the health nurse called to follow up and I asked for a home visit that I was able to get the whole latching thing down. Learning how to get that latch once I was at home was so much easier for many reasons not least of which is that it's a one on one experience and she's there to make sure that you get the latching thing down even if it means doing it over and over and over until you get it right and it feels like second nature.

When it's your first time around it's frustrating and difficult and disheartening. At least with the Bean I knew what to expect (I knew it would be frustrating and difficult and disheartening) because I'd been through the same thing with the Peanut. So when I started to get the the little nipple blisters I asked for help, again and again and again in the hospital; knowing that I very well might not get the hang of it there. When I got home I made sure to ask for a lactation consultant to come to me so that I would get back into fine breast feeding form.

Now if I can just get over how much time I'm spending feeding the Bean we'll be doing awesome.

* the photograph above of me and the Bean was taken by my Niece

On the positive side I'm too obstinate to give up

I won't bother to mention that we have 5 more days to wait for the Bean. Time is just flying. The closer the day gets the more nervous I find myself getting about returning to breastfeeding. Starting out with the Peanut was easy; it was like she new instinctively how to latch on properly in the first few minutes of being on the outside and then things just went down hill.

Just like how all that talk about how exhausted you're going to be after the baby comes falls on deaf ears when you're pregnant for the first time; the whole breastfeeding thing doesn't seem to register as a difficult task until you're exhausted from the lack of sleep and frustrated because that little life you've just brought into the world is screaming and crying pitifully because she's hungry and you can't get the hang of getting her to latch on. Don't even get me started on the whole nursing through mastitis scenario...

I recently read this blog post about how hard it is to breastfeed and it struck a nerve or two. Mostly because I saw myself in her experience but also because I wholeheartedly agree that when it comes to motherhood we tend to gloss over the hard parts too much; and breastfeeding is one of the hardest. I refuse to make it sound like a walk in the park to those who are headed toward parenthood (partly because scaring the crap out of first time parents to be can be great entertainment for those of us who are seasoned practitioners).

I once went out for dinner with two good friends from art school who I had lost touch around the time we found out we were having the Peanut. It had been a good three years since I'd last seen them and there was a lot to catch up on; one was working in an exciting new job that had her traveling all the time doing something that she loves, the other had just gotten married and was basking in the glow that is being a newly wed while stressing about the fact that she was in her final year of school with finals and looking for a job ahead of her. We traded stories and pictures and when they asked me how much I liked being a Mommy (because I had been known to be very vocal about wanting to be one) I shocked them both by honestly telling them that sometimes I hated it. That having a baby was hard, breastfeeding: hard, adjusting to being a Mom: hard. That even though I adored my Peanut that I sometimes longed for the days when I was not tied down to a schedule. The whole conversation became a little uncomfortable about then. They weren't expecting so much honesty and I wasn't about to sugarcoat my feelings or my experiences so I changed the subject and we moved on.

And now I'm on the cusp of doing it all over again. I know how to breastfeed in theory but the last time the Peanut latched on she was a month shy of two and trying to multitask while eating by watching what her Daddy was doing and getting a little yoga in with a downward dog pose all at the same time. Breastfeeding a two year old is not the same as breastfeeding a new born and I'm planning on having the nurses into my room as much as possible while we're getting the hang of it because the whole wrestling with a hungry newborn is not high on my list of things I'm looking forward to the second time around. It's going to be hard and I'll probably have my Mom telling me to just feed her formula while she's here and I'll have to juggle the Peanut at the same time and I'll probably get frustrated but I will do it and I won't be telling anyone how easy and natural it is to do because the look on their faces when they see that I'm serious will make it all worth while. Well that, and the fact that the Bean will be getting exactly what she needs from me and I won't be paying through the nose for formula.