Breastfeeding: One Month In

Okay, fair warning here, this is going to be a blunt tale of breastfeeding from a new mom. If you don’t want to read about what some might call TMI, I recommend skipping this post.

So.  In the hospital I was told by everyone that Eleanor had a great latch, and the staff was impressed by how well she was eating and how we were doing.  I thought everything was great, and then I got cracked nipples.  It reached an all-time low when she latched on, and suddenly she had blood leaking out the corners of her mouth.  It simultaneously broke my heart and seriously disturbed me (I had just read/watched the Twilight series, so it just reminded me of a vampire baby).  I had been expressing some milk and putting it on my nipples (this is what they recommend instead of nipple cream) but frankly that did jack squat for me.  I then started using the Motherlove Nipple Cream that Erica gave me and that helped immensely.

Soon after I noticed I had a fissure about 1/3 of the way around my nipple at the base where it attaches in addition to the cracks.  Talk about disturbing–it felt like my nipple was going to fall off.  I tried to deal with it but nursing became excruciating.  During the daytime I was able to cope, but in the middle of the night when I was running on very little sleep I had meltdowns every time it was time to nurse.  I would get anxious and tense up in anticipation of the latch (which only makes matters worse), and prolong the feeding which only made Ellie more upset and frantic to latch on which exacerbated the issue.  This all was accompanied by shooting pains between feedings which were getting worse.

After a particularly frightful night full of tears and swearing, I called the lactation consultant for an appointment.  Luckily they were able to get me in the next day, and she took one look at the state of things and said “Yikes!  Well, that’s about as bad as it gets…” That actually made me feel better, because I felt like I wasn’t just being a wuss.  She had me use a nipple shield so I could heal, and use antibacterial ointment as well as Motherlove diaper rash & thrush ointment to help things heal up and not become infected.

This has helped immensely, but we still aren’t out of the woods.  I’ve had two clogged ducts, things still aren’t totally healed, latch on still hurts for us, and I still have some shooting pains between feedings.  My doctor just prescribed the All Purpose Nipple Ointment, so that is going to be our next attempt at healing.  There have been many moments where I’ve been at the end of my rope, feeling like it’s one thing after another, but I’ve stuck it out and I’m glad I have.  My husband keeps reminding me why I’m doing this, and we’ve at least been fortunate that supply hasn’t been an issue.  It’s getting better with bumps along the road, but the bumps are getting smaller and smaller.  Erica keeps reminding me it gets worse before it gets better, so I just keep that in mind as we go forward, taking it one day at a time.