I'm Not Kidding

This needle went into my boob and drew out that amount of pus. You still think boobs are sexy?

Neither am I complaining.

I just can't get used to it - even though I believe this has happened to me once. 5 years ago, so now I understand why they say Pains fade with Time.

This time however, it was prolly 10 times worse.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not whining about it but i'm just penning down my experiences just so I can get it out of my head.

I've also sadly come to a point where i'm shock-proof. Every time something hits me, i'm like "Ok bring it on, let's just get over with it now. Cry cry cry also still have to suffer..."

So here we go.

I think the bulk of my post pregnancy blues or depression was due to my overflowing supply of milk.

Most people have their milk supply come in a few days after delivery. Mine comes in IMMEDIATELY.

And when it does, everything gets engorged. I can't sleep for long cause it starts to hurt. Your boobies get hardened and the nipple area is swollen. Everything is hyper sensitive.

Your shirt is always wet because you leak, you suffer from cracked nipples and when you put on your bra, you kinda dread the fact that the healing skin will stick to the fabric and if you don't there's no support.

Let me tell you another secret. The thing that's left out of glamourous articles on breast feeding. There's this term called the Let Down.

When milk starts coming in from your system, you feel like needles are piercing your veins. I kid you not.

Mine felt like that all the time. And I felt like I was constantly going through an electric shock.

This left me in tears. I was stuck in a horrible place where I wasn't able to use a pump to express the milk because it would over stimulate the flow. (It's all a supply and demand thing). And if I didn't hand express it out, it would be engorged. It's a fine balance almost impossible to achieve.

I was constantly consoled and told that after a week or two, it just gets better because your hormones withdraw, you don't walk around with heavy huge oversized breasts, the flow balances itself out and suddenly all the elements will click.

I had many days of tears where I would just sob myself to sleep. I had days where I would turn weak in the knees when I saw fresh blood staining the whole of my right breast because the nipple was bleeding. It was scary shit.

I just couldn't move or do it. I found myself sobbing and apologizing of course, for sobbing in front of my gynae who suggested I take Furosemide, a Diuretic pill to cut my flow of water.

Can you imagine that? I had to cut my supply medically when people are trying to increase their milk supply. I felt so bad but it was necessary.

I was also ready to give up. I have 2 Dostinex pills which cuts the supply altogether. I've hid them cause i'm not a quitter. But i detest not quitting.

As other post natal moms were getting better, I felt myself falling off the charts. I was feeling weaker and worse by the week. I was sleep deprived and just hanging on by the thread, one day, I started shivering.

This didn't make sense to me because I was actually starting to feel a little more in sync and things were starting to form a routine.

The milk supply had become steadier and I was able to empty the breast at 3hr intervals without leaking down my shirt or all over the house.

I realised I had the chills and fever. This I had with Nate 5 years ago. I just took a panadol, saw the doctor the next day for medication and antibiotics because I suspected it was mastitis.

On a side note, by the second week, I have about 60bags of frozen breast milk of about 120ml each at least.

She made me, however, run to the lactation consultant for a check.

It was there that the consultant spotted a very hard and huge lump at the bottom of the left breast

Alarm bells went off. She rushed me to the breast surgeon because she said it was prolly an abscess - a milk duct that was filled with pus and infected.

That explained the fever and the chills and body aches.

When you have to take care of your baby with these problems it's close to impossible because you can hardly stand up straight yourself. I was feeling awful. I had Nate to love as well. I was NOT enjoying one bit of my new baby. I was sad. Depressed. I hated it. Every waking moment was spent tending to the breast.

I never suspected that abscess because I was in too much pain overall to realize any more new pains.

Plus, I am able to empty the boob all the time so there was no reason for any stuck ducts.

So over at the surgeon, he did an ultra sound and found that there was indeed an abscess and told me he needed to extract it!!! With a needle!!! OH GOD HELP ME.

I tried bargaining to get some pain relief but there was no such thing. I just had to suck it up. At this point I was more worried that no one was home to send nate for his end of year concert and I just needed to get it over and done with.

I guess when you are a mother of 2, there's really really less time for yourself no matter what shitty situation you're in.

I maanged to buy some time to make phone calls to arrange for my brother to send nate to the concert while I get my pus extracted and then I would drive myself over and join the party.

Because life goes on doesn't it?

So yes the pus was extracted and i'm just waiting for the next thing to happen to me.

I dodged the bullet or shall I say needle yesterday at the follow up check up as less pus had formed and the meds were working so he's extended my anti-biotics intake for a few more days just to make sure.

I don't think I would have done very well with another needle.

I've already got the chills, the fever, the mastitis, the abscess, and oh I forgot to mention now diarrhea from the anti-biotics.

Awesome right?

Whatever you're doing right now, you win. I'm about to stare down at my chest as I express my milk once again.

I've said this before.

All the time I spend expressing milk and tending to my breast, I could learn like a new language.