Browsing Tag

breastfeeding

motherhood

Somebody tell me again why I’m breastfeeding

September 14, 2009

The good news is that Kirsten has started sleeping through the night. Since she turned 6 weeks, she’s been sleeping from 12 midnight to 6 in the morning, which gives me six whole hours of uninterrupted sleep. Now at 9 weeks, she’s been stretching that to 10 hours every night.

Naturally, I’ve been taking advantage of this new development to catch as much sleep as I can, except that my breasts seem hell bent on destroying me. I figured that if I ignored them, they would stop bothering me and eventually adjust to the new feeding hours so for a few nights, I express my last round of milk at 1o and crawl into bed by 11.30. This would last till 7 in the morning when Kirsten starts stirring. Initially, I started leaking milk all over my top, which I was prepared to handle in exchange for more sleep, but a after 2-3 days of leaking, they decided to develop blocked ducts instead and believe me, it is a pain in the ass breast.

I know it sounds like a very mild condition, like a blocked nose or something, but no, it is nothing like it at all. You can’t just blow it out and go along your merry way. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s worse than hemorrhoids combined with herpes at the same time. The pain is pretty much indescribable, like someone stuffed rocks into my breast and started beating it. Repeatedly.

A few nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in my left breast. I waited for it to pass, but it got so unbearable that I had to get up to check it. I tried expressing, but putting the pump to it was sheer torture. The entire breast had become rock hard, inflamed and filled with tiny lumps. Worst thing is, nothing came out. I’ve been averaging 120ml per session, but after 45 minutes, I was still at 20ml. The next morning, I came down with a flu and a fever. A quick check on google and apparently, these are all symptoms of blocked ducts. And check this out, if left untreated, it could develop into mastitis, which is NOT GOOD. You don’t want to mess with a name like mastitis.

Despite the pain, I’ve been back to a 3-hour expressing schedule, even through the night. And I have to battle a flu at the same time. Just like that, there goes my dreams of sleeping through the night. Now I can only look on with envy as my 9-week-old sleeps like a baby for 10 straight hours, while I’m banished to breast purgatory.

I never thought breastfeeding would be this hard. After going through all that initial teething problems, I though I had paid my dues but it just keeps getting worse. I only hope all that “Breast is best” propaganda is true, then at least it would all be worth it. If not, I’m seriously going to set fire to the person who came up with it.

by Daphne

motherhood

And so it begins

July 15, 2009

Motherhood seems deceptively easy

Postpartum is a real pain. I’ve been waiting to give birth for months and now that its over, I’m totally floored by it.

It’s been an insane couple of days. I’m still recovering from the trauma of childbirth and struggling with the breastfeeding (my boobs are still broken – 3 days and absolutely no milk) and I’m exhausted beyond description. Plus I can feel an all-too-familiar sensation of the baby blues creeping up on me. It’s deja vu all over again.

The weird thing is, I was actually expecting it in my head. I spent many sleepless nights preparing myself for it, but it’s different actually experiencing it. When it hits, I still feel overwhelmed.

And what are the odds that on the day I get discharged from the hospital, Superdad comes down with a 39.6 degree fever. With the dreaded H1N1 virus going around, he’s now quarantined at home like a leper, so me and the 2 kids are now banished from home. Good thing we’ve got a back up plan, and we’re taking refuge at my mom’s place for a few days until its safe to go back. Unless of course it is a case of H1N1, then we’ll have to send in the professionals to do a clean sweep of the house.

Right now, I’m just waiting for the madness to settle. I hope I’ll find my groove soon.

This is the point I tell myself “2 IS ENOUGH!“

by Daphne

pregnancy

Help, my boobs are broken

July 3, 2009

breastfeeding

Believe it or not, I’m actually envious of women with squirty breasts. Some women seem to be able to produce enough milk to feed a small province in China and still have enough to spare. I once went to a friend’s place and her freezer was overflowing with bottles of breast milk. I, on the other hand, have barely enough to feed a tiny kitten.

Partly thanks to the c-section the first time around, I literally had no milk for the first 5-6 days. Not even a drop. I was hell bent on breastfeeding Tru in the hospital, so I voluntarily endured some brutal breast-manhandling by the lactation consultant (who didn’t seem to notice that my breasts were actually attached to nerves and kneaded and pinched my areola like she was rolling dough). And even then, still nothing. Zilch. Every time I latched Tru on to feed, he’d suckle for a few minutes, then stop abruptly and scream for dear life.

The nurse was trying to console me by saying that newborns don’t really need much milk for the first few days, but looking at my helpless little bundle screaming for food, it was too much for me to bear. By the second day, I caved and fed him formula milk as a supplement. From then on, he figured out it was much easier drinking from a bottle and refused to latch directly to drink. The only option was for me to express the milk and feed from the bottle.

So for the first month, my daily schedule consisted of feeding (30 minutes), burping (15 minutes), rocking him to sleep (45 minutes) expressing milk (60 minutes). I’d emerge an hour later with a measly 20 ml of milk (that’s from both breasts, mind you). By the time I was done expressing, it was time to start the whole cycle all over again.

I was so immensely jealous of moms that could fill up a 200 ml bottle in 30 minutes. I even heard that some women have so much milk that when the baby stops drinking, milk would be squirting out in all directions (WAY COOL!)

In fact, I was convinced that my boobs were broken and it’s a miracle I even lasted a whole month. I was too bummed by the fact that my game plan for losing weight had vanished into thin air (the hopes, not the fats).

Very soon, I’ll have another shot at breastfeeding and I AM GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. To aid the process, I’ve gotten all the breastfeeding devices I could think of, like a co-sleeper that attaches to my bed so I’ve got easy access to her during all hours of the night, a breastfeeding pillow for proper positioning and support, a state of the art breast pump to provide the necessary stimulation and a ton of herbs that’s supposed to increase the milk supply.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that somehow, my breasts will miraculously start squirting milk in the next 2 weeks. I’d take leaky breasts over spoilt ones any day.

by Daphne