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I am almost titled this post "From Porn Star to School Girl" but I thought that might be a little inappropriate... After drying-up it took a while for my breasts to be fully dry. One still leaked a little milk from it every now and then but that has stopped. My nipples continue to be pretty itchy and look scaly. It makes sense if you think about it. The milk ducts are like an open wound that is now healing! I'm adjusting to life post-nursing. I don't miss actual nursing one bit! Ever! It's not that I didn't love it while I did it, because I did, it's just that it was truly time and I'm enjoying not being "pregnant" for the first time since May of 2008!!!! It was awesome to wash all my maternity bras and pack them away! What's not awesome though is how in about a weeks time my boobs went from sexxxxy to barely there. I was wearing a 36D and now my 34C (pre-pregnancy size) is on the tightest it can go and I have to keep tightening t...
Wellllll some people knew what I was in for ( Rachael and Robyn !) but I didn't really have a clue. I like to wait until I'm through something tough to blog about it as it's easier to see how I handled the situation and what I did to overcome it when I'm looking BACK on it instead of living in it at the moment. On the 22nd I nursed Kye for the last time. On the 23rd I felt fine. It was my first day of not nursing since March 4th and I was just like normal. No issues at all. That night I didn't sleep so great but it only got worse! On the 24th (greeeat timing Emily!) I noticed my breasts were pretty hard and tender and it was pretty annoying. I put cabbage in my bra and went about my day. I changed out the cabbage as soon as it got wilted. When we got to Mrs. Charlotte's she told me I should bind them up but I had a cute sweater on and didn't want to ruin my outfit. By the end of the night though I was needing some help. I changed into a comfy shirt and le...
Everyone knows that breastfeeding started off super tough for me. I had pain. I had bleeding. I had engorgement, mastitis, and yeast. Basically everything that could go wrong did! It took me about 8 weeks to finally get every issue solved and to finally feel like I had the hang of it. As Kye is getting older I realize that I am closer and closer to the goal I had planned for myself: 6 months of breastfeeding. I have a lot of mixed feelings about stopping breastfeeding. Here is my "pro" list for stopping at 6 months: my breasts will go back to a normal size instead of being one size right after he eats and being super huge right before he eats again no more pumping for missed feedings! no more leaking milk through the night it'll probably make it easier to lose the last little bit of weight that I'm clinging onto he's already gotten all the benefits from it and doesn't "need" it the way he did in the beginning no more scheduling everything ar...
Kye's Changes This Week: 4 Hour Schedule: This is very exciting! Babywise suggests that by the time a baby is 4 months old they should be on the four hour schedule (eating at 7, 11, 3, and 7). I planned on waiting until Kye was closer to the 4 month marker just to make sure he was ready but Saturday we moved it! Since Autumn was here for his pictures he went down for his nap almost an hour late and was soooo sleepy. I let him sleep until 11 instead of the normal 10:30. He did fine! So the next nap I tried to put him down later and he slept again until 3. I was worried about the 7 pm feeding though b/c that means he had to go 12 hours without eating again. I thought for sure he'd wake up in the middle of the night! But since Katie and Ashley were over and he played A LOT with them and was outside a lot he was so tired we didn't hear a thing out of him all night! Being on a 4 hour schedule is wonderful as his naps have been SO much better (since he's 4 hours now he ...
Everyone knows by now that breastfeeding has been a rocky road for me. Before going to Paris I took more antibiotic for yeast and Kye also took medicine that ended while we were gone. Since he'd still be on medication when we left Zach and I decided to not make a decision as to what to do next until we got home. While in Paris Kye did great with the bottle and drank around 5 oz per feeding, rarely spitting up. While he was eating in the US I was pumping in France and got around 8-10 oz per pump session. A little more than he was eating each time don't you think? I had no pain while on the trip and felt hopeful that my days of nursing weren't yet over. When we got home I was eager to breastfeed and see how it went. Well Kye spit up a TON and I started hurting again! I was very annoyed and started putting two and two together...he spits up more when getting food from the breast AND I pumped waaaay more than he ate each time. Maybe my problem is too much milk! I started...
Zach left Wednesday afternoon for Macon (he had to work the evening shift selling Aflac to prison employees) and decided to stay until Thursday night so while having all my pain I also had Kye all by myself! Surprisingly though it went really well! Being alone with him is tough because I don't have help but in a way it was also nice because I could do anything I wanted and not have to get someone elses opinion! It was a good opportunity to start the suggestions Stacy gave me with babywise and they worked! He only woke up once during the night! I was so pumped!!! Once we got up for the day yesterday I decided to call the lactation specialist at the hospital. I tried pumping like Stacy suggested but I wasn't getting any results and it hurt so so badly, so it just wasn't worth it. I talked to the lactation lady for about an hour and she told me she wanted me to come up to the hospital so she could see my breasts and watch me nurse to see if she could figure out what is wron...
Anyone that has ever read my blog will know that I am a planner who does what I set out to do. There have been very few goals in my life that I haven't achieved. Have the wedding of my dreams: check. Be a stay at home mom: check. Have natural childbirth: check. Another goal that I hope to check off my list is to breastfeed for at least 6 months. No matter what anyone else says or thinks I am so proud of myself for how well I've done through all the obstacles of breastfeeding that I have faced. I had cracked, bleeding, painful-to-the-touch nipples and I kept going. I had mastits...with fever and red, painful breasts and I kept going. I have had yeast that burns my breasts 24/7 and makes my nipples pinched when he eats and through 2 different treatments that haven't worked I've kept going. I'm a lot tougher than I have ever given myself credit for that's for sure! I may not be very positive about my breastfeeding experience (pretty hard to be happy-go-lucky abou...
Last week Mom was out of school for Spring Break so of course she wanted to come visit her grand baby! It worked out nicely for me too because it gave me a much needed break! With all my breast issues lately, I was so happy to be able to feed him then hand him over to her and enjoy myself a little bit! She got into town on Tuesday which was good timing because pretty much every road leading to our house was closed down Sunday and Monday due to flooding! When she arrived we took Kye and ran errands. It was even helpful to have her here for that as she could wait in the car while I ran in! While running errands we decided to get Kye's picture taken with the Easter Bunny! Of course Kye just kept right on sleeping through the whole thing. Yes, the bunny is creepy but doesn't Kye look cute? Again it was good she was here because she was able to keep Kye when I had to quickly run to the dr. to have them look at me on Wednesday. Update about that: I'm STILL hurting. The cream d...
It's like my body said, "Well you are 4 weeks postpartum and you haven't had many issues so let's load you up with some!" I stopped having a lot of bleeding a couple weeks ago but then on the way to Melbourne I had really bad cramps. Like period cramps. I got a little concerned and wondered what was up but it said online that I could be "supposed" to have a period then but since I'm nursing that my body went through the motions of the normal period symptoms without the actual period! I had no spotting all weekend but then I got home and had quite a bit of it for a couple of days...so my question is could I have a period this soon? I heard I shouldn't get one for like 6 months since I'm breastfeeding but my symptoms seem like I could have had one already...This is something I need to ask the dr. at my 6 week check-up for sure! Along the same lines, I started getting a lot of pain in my lower stomach. Not period type pain but hurting . I...
Zach and I took the available classes and I read several books on the subject so we felt pretty prepared. Well, even preparation doesn't prepare you for the reality! My problem with breastfeeding really is that "they" make it sound easy. Every book talks about how wonderful it is and that it "shouldn't" hurt. With childbirth, everything makes it sound awful. People talk about how painful it is. Books discuss how to mentally prepare yourself. So when childbirth actually came I was expecting it to be horrible! This made it seem BETTER to me because it wasn't half as bad as I was expecting. With breastfeeding, it's been the opposite. I expected it to be easy, wonderful, and something I'd love. Instead, it's so so hard and I think people should go into it knowing it's HARD so you're prepared for the work and will therefore enjoy it more. I see why so many people give up because they expect it to be awesome and when it's tough they t...
