This post is a personal reflection of my breastfeeding experience, and is not the typical experience of other breastfeeding parents. It contains some colorful descriptions of painful events and may be triggering.
I decided early in my pregnancy that I would breastfeed. It seems like a foregone conclusion these days that every mother will at least attempt to breastfeed assuming she is physically capable.
There is seemingly endless reading available on the topic of breastfeeding – everyone wants to talk about what a natural, beneficial thing it is for both mom and baby! But what I didn’t read one single time was how traumatic it can be.
The first 48
Looking back, I think my trouble started before I even left the hospital. The nurses were all extremely nice and full of information, but every one had completely different advice when it came to breastfeeding.
“Hold her like a football!”
“Lay her on her side in front of you”
“Grab your breast like a U when latching”
“Dad, step in and help”
“Mom, you should do this feeding alone so you know what to expect”
“Light touch massage will help when your milk comes in”
“Let her nurse as long as she wants”
“Don’t nurse her for more than 45 minutes at a time”
“Don’t pump your milk for at least 3 weeks to regulate your supply”
I could probably list 1000 more tidbits they fed me in the first 48 hours of my daughter’s life. My brain was so foggy from the whole giving birth thing, and now I had to remember all these tips and tricks on breastfeeding? It seems like I was being set up for failure right out of the gate.
Coming in hot
We got home from the hospital and my milk came in HOT. My boobs doubled in size overnight and I had no idea what to do. I was told not to pump, but when I nursed it seemed like I never felt relief.
My daughter and I were both having issues with feeding. She was having a hard time latching properly, and I was having a hard time helping her latch. Suddenly, I had 2 rocks attached to my chest and this tiny newborn couldn’t seem to make a dent in them. I was constantly soaked even though she was constantly feeding.
I searched all over the internet for advice on what to do from reputable sources but nothing was helping. Feedings were getting more stressful and neither my daughter nor I were getting any kind of results from my constant attempts at finding a solution.
Day 9
I was 9 days postpartum when my husband finally insisted I get help. I would get searing pain in my nipples when my daughter would latch spend most of our nursing sessions choking back tears. He found a lactation consultant in the area and scheduled an appointment for us the next day.
They diagnosed me with “borderline mastitis”. Borderline, because I didn’t have any of the traditional symptoms of fever, chills, and other flu-like symptoms. I just had hugely clogged ducts and an oversupply of milk. They told me to pump immediately after each feeding and gave me some techniques to break up the clogs through massage and heat.
They wrote me a prescription for antibiotics but told me only to take them if I broke a fever, because there was a risk of my daughter getting thrush if I took them.
I went home and started to feel better. It kind of seemed like my daughter and I found our groove with breastfeeding for a few weeks, but it was extremely touch and go. The lumps from my clogged ducts never totally went away, but I felt OK most of the time so I let it go.
Week 6
Things started to go downhill around week 5.
The lump that never really went away got super large one day and I frantically googled how to break it up. Heat, Massage, Breastfeed, Repeat. There were some other more extreme measures that were suggested (and attempted) but nothing was helping.
That weekend I had my SIL’s baby shower AND I was hosting my sister’s bridal shower. I told myself I could suck it up for a few more days.
The day of my sister’s bridal shower, the lump turned purple.
In my state of terror, I started to google complications of mastitis and came across an article describing “abscessed mastitis”. It sounded AWFUL, but also stated that it almost never happens because mastitis is too painful to go untreated for long enough to become abscessed. Phew.
I called the lactation consultant and asked to come back ASAP.
They found an opening for me that Monday and I went in with my daughter. They weighed her and to my horror, she had only gained 6 oz in her 6 weeks of life.
I felt like a complete failure. I was torturing myself to make sure my baby was well cared for, and I still fucked it up. While one lactation consultant assessed me, another one gave my daughter a bottle of formula as an urgent course correction. She needed to gain weight. Immediately.
Then they told me the “borderline mastitis” I had was not only full blown now, it was likely abscessed. The purple hue my boob had taken was actually a secondary cellulitis infection – that’s how bad this was. I was immediately referred to a breast surgeon to meet with the next morning.
Quick lesson break –
A little lesson in mastitis for context. Mastitis occurs when a clogged milk duct does not get cleared properly and becomes inflamed and infected. Its painful and typically causes redness and warmth around the inflamed tissue, fever, and chills. If left untreated, it can become abscessed. The infected area fills with pus and becomes hard, in addition to the previously listed symptoms.
Before any breastfeeding mom reading this panics – mastitis occurs in ~10-20% of lactating women. Less than 3% of those who get mastitis will end up with an abscess.
Spoiler Alert: It gets gross
Doesn’t it suck when the doctor you’d prefer to be a bridge troll is instead extremely handsome? Same.
He did an ultrasound on my boob and immediately confirmed I had a large abscess, mastitis, and cellulitis. There were two courses of action he could take: needle aspiration or surgical drainage. He was not very optimistic about option 1 working because it was so large, but he wanted to spare me the long and painful recovery of option 2.
In a sweet attempt to remove the fear factor, he explained everything he was going to do. It didn’t matter though because he also showed me the size of the needle.
He was going to take a saline solution and inject it in to the abscess to try and break it up, and then… suck it back out with the needle. I know. I’m dry heaving too.
Please don’t ask me why I counted and definitely don’t ask me why over a year later I still remember the number, but he stuck me with the needle almost 40 times. He put me on antibiotics and told me to come back in 3 days to repeat the procedure. If he wasn’t successful in removing it all on my second visit, we would have to move to option 2.
Here’s the worst part about this. I had to go home and KEEP PUMPING! I stopped breastfeeding when I found out how bad my mastitis was, but my body was still producing milk. How fucking wild is that?
Visit number 2
That Friday I met with the doctor again. I didn’t bring my husband this time because I knew what to expect and didn’t want him to miss more work. He walks in and wastes no time before telling me we won’t be doing the needle aspiration today.
There were a few other things said, but I was already spiraling in to a panic. He wanted to perform the surgery. Immediately.
Read Part 2 of the saga here.
