KK and M

The Hell: Also known as Breastfeeding:
Mayson was 3 weeks old yesterday, wow; I can’t believe we’ve made it this far. I have a lot of books that sit around the house and I pick them up constantly to read about various things. The one topic where I have not found truthful information is: BREASTFEEDING.

I feel that every breastfeeding source should have let soon to be moms know that this task would be one of the hardest things you will ever have to do. I also feel that I should have been informed that it is not easy and it hurts worse than breaking your arm. Unlike animals, babies and mommies do not just know how to nurse, it’s not like the baby would just latch on to my boob and start to eat. No, I would have to forcefully push my boob into her mouth and hope my hardest that when she started sucking I wouldn’t feel the worst pain in my life. Her lips have to be in the correct formation, her tongue has to be in the right spot, I have to push the right amount of areola into her mouth, if all of these things weren’t accomplished all hell would break loose. Well, let’s just say that all of those tasks were rarely met in my breastfeeding episodes. It got so painful that when one feeding would end the absolute dread of the next feeding would begin. It’s all I would think about. Because we were doing it wrong I received my fair share of bloody cracked nipples and pumped out my first bottle of what looked like strawberry milk. Hmmm… that was when I knew something was wrong. It’s just not natural to feed your baby bloody milk. How much grosser can being a mother get.

The bloody cracked nipples got me a wonderful breast infection called mastitis. Which along with it gave me the highest fever of my life, over 103 degrees. The doctor asked if I could empty that breast which I quickly replied, absolutely not. I could barely touch that one. He said I had too unless I wanted to get an abscess that he would have to surgically drain. So, I emptied it. Kevin and I went out and a bought a double electric breast pump for $250!

So far my left breast was doing pretty well. It didn’t really hurt too bad and had no cracks. So I kept feeding her from that one and I would pump and bottle-feed her from my right one. Two days later I developed a horrible crack or hole I called it in my left nipple. Hmmmm……. It was that day that I decided I’m done with breastfeeding. In between EVERY feeding I would cry and cry and dread the next session. I wasn’t enjoying the baby at all. I knew that if the pain stopped I would enjoy her much more because all she was giving me was a hell of a lot of pain.

That was the best decision. The new expensive ass pump works well and I can pump out her food in about 20 minutes or less. It has taken 4 days of not breastfeeding to heal my nipples. But they still don’t feel good enough to try breastfeeding again, I don’t know if mentally I will ever be able to try it again. Yesterday, Wednesday, I developed clogged ducts in my left breast, which if left untreated would develop into mastitis. So I spent about 4 hours yesterday soaking my breast in HOT water and massaging it. Which WORKED. My clogged ducts are clear and I’m producing more milk now. Thank goodness.

I am writing about this mostly for my friends who have yet to be moms. Now you know the truth. Not everyone has problems but A LOT of people do. It’s not easy and if you decide that you can’t do it anymore that’s okay. Whatever is better for you mentally is better for your baby. Now you know the unadulterated truth of breastfeeding that you won’t find in any book. It is without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.