Dread Pirate Robert takes no prisoners

Alternate title: Nothing goes as planned, does it?

Breastfeeding: simply the hardest thing I've ever done, after giving birth. We have the Murphy's Law version of a breastfeeding relationship: everything that can go wrong, will. It started with Robert's extra days in the hospital, the resultant use of the breast pump, WRONG use of breast pump (who knew?) combined with barracuda of a son leading to severe nipple damage, screaming FUCKING HELL every time he latched on (in front of my mom, no less), repeated trips to the lactation consultant, overactive letdown and too much milk, switching to pumping (the right way, this time) and giving bottles of expressed milk, and now a raging thrush infection. Because nothing says "bonding!" like matching anti-fungal prescriptions!

Pumping doesn't really hurt anymore, but it is so time consuming. Every three hours, pump. It takes at least fifteen minutes, usually more. It's hard to determine when to stop pumping. If I do too little, I risk Robert not getting "the good stuff"-- the high-fat, high-protein hind-milk, that comes at the end of a nursing session-- and also risk getting engorged again, or getting a blocked duct; because there is just SO MUCH MILK. If I pump too much or for too long, I risk overstimulating my supply again. I don't know how much the early pumping has to do with my supply problems, because there's no way to know what it would have been like had Robert and I had a normal, mouth-to-boob beginning, but I suspect it did a good deal of harm. So every three hours, pump; bottle-feed the baby; and wash or sanitize all of the pump equipment and bottles. It usually takes at least half an hour, generally longer, to do this. So if I start pumping at eleven at night, go to bed at 11:45, get up at 2:00, get up again at 5:00am. Never sleeping more than two hours at a time, and that's assuming that Robert falls asleep again shortly after being fed.

Everybody says, take naps during the day! Sleep when the baby sleeps! But not everybody can just lay down for a nap anytime, you know? Sometimes, I'm tired but I can't sleep. Sometimes there's just other stuff I have to do (like pump. Again. Or boil the bottles.)-- or want to do. Everybody says, let the house go! Let everything go, just concentrate on taking care of the baby! Nobody discusses whether seeing the same pile of dirty laundry on the floor for three days might be too much for the fragile, post-partum mental state to handle, and that it's honestly better to just run it through the wash than to look at it and cry.

It's funny, when Robert was in the hospital and I was bringing in milk (and pre-milk, at first), it seemed like such a precious commodity. I'd stayed up most of the night pumping, and carefully transported it to the Special Care nursery; "I brought him some milk, is this good? Is it enough?" Now, I see it more as a biological contaminate... whatever doesn't make it into a bottle or into my son just makes a mess: soaking towels, shirts, bras, pads (Don calls the breast pads "boob diapers"); dripping onto my pants, onto my desk where I keep the pump. And it's a lot better than it was a few weeks ago. I am no longer sleeping on a folded towel, for instance. Pity the fool that tells me, "At least you have enough! Too much is better than too little!" They have not seen my poor baby gag and choke at the breast, trying to deal with a flow that's like drinking from a fire hose, or felt him clamp down as hard as he can on the nipple, to momentarily stop the spray. They haven't seen the screaming, gassy stomachaches that follow a feeding, and that happen less often and less severely when he drinks from the bottle, a fact that makes me want to cry. Oversupply and forceful letdown are not "a blessing in disguise", they're a serious problem and a real pain in the ass.

We have not even put a cloth diaper on him, yet. I hardly ever carry him in the sling or front-pack. At first this was because he was so heavy, and I was so weak and tired. Now, it's because the thrush has made my breasts so sore that nothing can rest upon them, definitely not the straps of the Baby Bjorn. He does not look comfortable in the Hotsling, and seems so precariously perched in it that I wrap one arm around the sling anyway, defeating the purpose. I think what we need is one of those big wrap-type slings with lots of fabric, but I don't have one yet. So far, he's been in the stroller more than anything. He spends about equal time at night in his bassinet, and in our bed; I thought we'd co-sleep more. He sleeps better with Don than with me; Don thinks this is because I smell like food to Robert and make him hungry, but it's still slightly disheartening. I spend a lot of every day, just surviving.