Lactation Salvation

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful comments, emails and prayers on my last post.  I've been playing a lot of the "Would You Rather" game in my head with regard to mastitis and the other thing almost always wins. :)  Also, to answer a couple of comments, I didn't get around to getting newborn pictures done for her, I just cranked up the heat, got her nakie and waited....and waited.....and waited.....  :) 

So yesterday I threw my pride aside and took us to boobie bootcamp with the lactation consultant.  Let me just say the LC was completely delightful! She had me come in about 15 minutes before Natalie's feeding time and we talked about everything, from how easy/difficult it was to conceive to all the things I had tried to alleviate the pain up to that point. She listened to what I had to say and made notes, rather than interjected opinions, as I talked. Then we weighed the little miss....8 lbs, 6 ounces!  For those keeping track at home, that was another 10 ounce gain in just 5 days since our 2 week-ish appointment on the 19th! Whoa baby!  So the LC converted that to grams then had me nurse Nat on the first side.  She watched the latch and the way she nursed and when she started to slow down, the LC had me end that side. I was a little confused since we'd only been nursing about 4 minutes at that time, but she's the expert! So we weighed her again and as it turns out, she had gotten about an ounce already and the LC mentioned that a baby her age only eats a couple of ounces per mealtime on average so we'll move on to the second side. Wow.....because I had been trying my darndest to keep her on for 15 minutes a side b/c that's what I had to do with Ryan.....whoops!  So Natalie nursed on the second side while we talked about what to look for in case I get thrush (oh yeah, because I am showing some signs of that too) and how to heal up my war-torn sensitive area that the mastitis ravaged. After about 5 minutes she slowed down so I unlatched her, weighed her and Natalie got about an ounce and a half!  So that's her entire feeding, but she was able to get it in 10 minutes rather than 30! Wahoo! Then the LC gave me a bunch of products to heal me up and I probably don't have to say that I practically skipped out of the hospital after our meeting!

So we're through the first full day of our new routine and it's been going much better!  Her gassiness and weird diapers have gone away (due to getting SO much milk).  My sensitive bits are healing so I don't dread looking at the clock to see when our next feeding is, and Natalie is still the happy baby she's always been. I'd say that's a win-win-win-win!!