Weaned

Bug has been fully weaned for about 3 or 4 days now...

It's weird to not be nursing her at all anymore. I miss it a little bit. I know that we were both ready but I am sad to see it go. Besides all of the many health benefits for both baby and mom, breastfeeding for me has been an amazing experience. Although it's been a rocky and difficult journey. Bug was born at 6:39 am and I could not get her to latch at all until around midnight or so that evening. She would not latch on me so the nurse helped get a small tube of formula that she put next to me to help Bug realize food came out of that thing I kept sticking in her mouth. The nurses, however, didn't teach me how to latch correctly and so I had a very painful first couple of weeks until callousing. For 3 or 4 days I had to bite down on a glove while I nursed to keep me from screaming, but tears still streamed down my face. Then I had about 1 week of nursing before my first plugged duct occurred. Then a couple more appeared and then formed into one giant abscess. I went through two extremely awful breast infections that were so painful my doctor prescribed Lortab. Through this period I will still solely nursing. Not once using formula. With antibiotics, the first infection went away, but not even the strongest antibiotics were working on the second. By this point I was taking Lortab once a day because it hurt so bad. Then one morning, the pain woke me up at 3:00 am and it hurt so bad it made me dizzy. Tarzan drove me to the emergency room where after waiting what seemed an excruciating long time, they took us back. The did an ultrasound on the infected and plugged duct breast and deduced that I had to have immediate surgery to drain it. But they let me nurse Bug one more time. They then drained out 600 ml of fluid. If you don't know how much that is, think of a one liter bottle of pop, and it's just over half of that...*shudder*

After that I thought all was going to be perfect. Because of the surgery and anesthesia we had to supplement my breastfeeding with formula for a little while and I had to pump and dump my milk. Then, about a week after surgery...it started filling up again. I had to go back into the surgeon 6 more times, 3 of those to get additional surgical procedures, 2 for check-ups to see if the given procedure was working, and the last procedure was to remove a tube he had stitched into the hole so that the fluid could continually drain. If you are interested in all the nasty, gory details of how we tried to fix it, let me know and I would be happy to tell you. :) But it was pretty nasty stuff. For those 3 months or so of trying to get it fixed, I had to nurse Bug with gauze right next to her cheek and swaddle her arms so she couldn't rip out my bandages or stitches.

Then I was finally healed! The affected breast is still to this day smaller than the other because of the surgery. Now that I am finished nursing I am hoping that they will become the same size again - that would be nice!

But even if I am lopsided my whole life, and even though I had to go through the same excruciating type pain as actually giving birth (after just experiencing the pain of giving birth :) ), I, not for one minute, regret my decision to push forward and breastfeed. It was the hardest thing I have had to do so far in my life and I grew so much because of it. I got many blessings during this trial and through them I know even more so of Heavenly Father's love for me. Especially the last blessing I got where I was nervous that after the 4th surgery it would come back, and so Tarzan gave me a blessing. I felt so strongly how much Heavenly Father loves me!! It was almost a tangible feeling it was so strong. Even though I had been in so much physical and emotional pain, I felt that Heavenly Father had cried for me as well. That it had hurt him just as much watching me go through it, and I felt his infinite joy that he could finally tell me that I was healed. I wish I was a better writer that I could help you to fully understand the power of these feelings, but I will just count on the Holy Spirit for that.

All in all, I know that Heavenly Father loves me and that the experiences I had have helped me become a stronger, more patient, and more faithful woman.