On my left breast there is a serious burn blister from where I iced my breast with one of those ice chest cold packs without realizing I should have first wrapped it in a towel or something. I literally froze my left boob completely...it felt like a frozen chicken breast by the time I realized what I had done.
See, three days ago, my right breast became engorged. I placed a bunch of ice cubes in a baggy and put it in the far right side of my bra, and the cold pack from the cooler in the middle of my boobs. Ahhh, relief. The pain of an engorged breast is up there with the actual c-section...I am not kidding. I left the packs in my bra until the ice cubes in the baggy turned to water. I took them out, and when I tried to pull out the cold pack from the middle of my boobs, I quickly realized it was frozen on to the skin of my left breast. I finally got it off, and to my horror, once removed, it revealed a frozen gray section of breast...I seriously looked like my boob climbed Everest and was exposed to the elements. The next morning, this section of my breast had blistered up completely....from the nipple to the center of my chest was one huge liquid filled blister. But that's not the worst part.
The worst part was the hardness of my right breast. Regardless of the whole icing, which was supposed to slow down my milk production and reduce the swelling of my ducts so the engorged milk could pass and release the painful pressure associated with the back-up, the right breast was still so huge it ended underneath my right arm pit and was hard as a rock and painful just sitting still.
So why is all this happening? Well, it's a long story. If you've read my blog for awhile, before Alia was born I decided that I'd give breast feeding the old college try. It's something I think is worth the effort. The day Alia was born, I tried to breast feed her within the first few hours of her birth, just as all the breast-feeding experts recommend. But it didn't go so well. Alia couldn't latch on. And then she became frustrated. Her whole entire little body turned bright red with frustration...she shook with anger and sadness. She cried and cried. I finally couldn't take it any more, and the lactation consultant told me she has never been able to accomplish a latch once a baby was so worked up. So together we decided that for now, we'd feed her some formula from a bottle to take the edge off her hunger, and then try again.
The second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth...you get the idea... attempt went the same way. Not good. When I finally did get her to latch on, surprise!!!! No milk. Never fear, though...any lactation specialist will tell you that the pre-mik stuff called colostrum is all a newborn needs. Well, all most newborns need. Since Alia only weighted 6 pounds 12 ounces, she came out ready to eat...her drive to put on weight was like the will of an angry tornado. She wanted milk. Now!!!! So once again, I was faced with an obstacle....hungry baby, no milk...so again, I had to substitute formula until my milk came in, which should be in 3 to 5 days. So until then, the nurse would bring in the hospital grade breast pump and I'd pump the colostrum to be added to the baby's bottle, so we made the best of it.
Finally, my milk came in the following Saturday. Happy day! But what I didn't count on and had optimistically pushed aside in my mind was the fact that by now, Alia didn't really want to learn a new skill. She'd been bottle fed for her entire life, so she didn't really have much motivation. But I wanted her to learn to breast feed from the breast...even though I've been pumping since the day Alia was born and she's receiving my breast milk in an alternative way, I want her to nurse directly from me. I want the convenience of not sterilizing bottles every 4 hours. I want the closeness that comes from the intimate act of breast feeding. I would much rather look down and see her beautiful little face and eyes staring back at me than my nipples pulsating in the breast pump cones that suction on my boobs.
Although it's not the worst thing if she never latches on, it would make my life much easier and more fulfilled if we could overcome this obstacle. There have been times that I'm holding a content happy little baby and have to pass her off to some one else so I can retreat into my breast pumping lair...and I'd much rather have the time with her than my pump, but at least we're fortunate enough to live in a time that there is a breast pump that allows her to have my milk regardless of the obstacles.
