So I've been MIA for a while. Sorry about that. It was getting hard.
Where do I begin? Well remember that time I was all, "Tomorrow is my first day alone with Semisi!" Well, that didn't happy for another week and a half because I ALMOST DIED.
Okay, maybe not. But ALMOST. I'll spare you many (not all, of course) of the details, but to make a long story not quite as long, I got this thing called mastitis, and my nipple turned to something so disgusting (what? You didn't want to hear about my nipple?) that I am actually going to SPARE you by NOT posting the picture that I took of my nipple with my cell phone. The same picture that I may or may not have sent via text message to my doctor. OH YES I DID.
Yeah, that was an awkward text message. It was like, "Hi, Dr. It's Megan. This is awkward, but I'm going to send you a picture of my messed up nipple because my husband actually starts to gag every time I go to use the breast pump. We're concerned. Please send help."
My doctor called me and was all OH MY GOD GET TO THE ER RIGHT NOW. Yeah, that's how nasty it was.
So off I went. But the cute ER doctor (awkward moment number 874 of becoming a mother) simply confirmed I had mastitis and told me to keep taking the (second)antibiotic that I'd been prescribed. He also gave me pain meds, because I could tell even HE was a little...well, "put off" by the state of the nipple. Also I told him that pumping and/or breastfeeding elicited a pain comparable, if not worse, than giving birth. Wheeeee!
Three days later, mastitis is not gone, fever is back with a vengence, and I'm back in the doctor's office. And then I'm being told I have MRSA! Do you know what that is? Me either, but I think it stands for Must Really Suck Ass, because it did. And then I had to get a different antibiotic that cost a million gazillion dollars. So many dollars that I can't even say it out loud on the internets because I work in healthcare and part of my job is minimizing health care dollar expenditures and OH MY GOD the price of this prescription made me blush and cuss in front of the little pharmacy assistant. Oops.
And remember all my breast feeding drama? Well, this antibiotic that cost me a gazillion dollars hasn't been proven to be safe for my baby while breastfeeding, so to keep up my supply I had to pump and dump. To be honest, I was ready to throw in the towel at this point. But the Internet told me that only devil worshippers feed their children baby formula, and the crazy Le Leche people were like, MUST BREASTFEED EVEN IF YOU ARE ON YOUR DEATH BED and so I found myself succumbing to this peer pressure and sticking with it. So for the past the past 10 days I have been pumping and dumping what little I am producing. For those of you who have ever pumped breast milk, you know that dumping it out is like dumping LIQUID GOLD down the drain. LIQUID GOLD I tell you.
But now I'm back! And I'm better! And I'm alive! And thanks to my husband, our son is still here too!
And these past four days that I've (finally!) been alone with him have not been quite as terrifying as I thought they would be.
So onward an upward! For now, my days consist of smooching my baby, watching reruns of Mad Men, and pumping liquid gold from my body. Now that the babes and I are getting into the swing of things, I hope to blog more than every few years or so.
Maybe someday I'll even blog about something other than my crazy nipple. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, here is proof that my baby boy has, in fact, continued to thrive despite my attempting to poison him with formula. Happy 1 month b-day son! You're seriously worth it. I promise you that.
P.S. Shout out to my fab hubs, my Mom and Ang for taking care of me and my sweet little baby cakes while I was down and out.
O m g! I m literally laughing so hard that I am crying... I can't believe he's 1 month old. Are you guys gonna be around this weekend? christy savaria
ReplyDeleteHow does he keep getting cuter and cuter??? I believe Semisi's trying out his hang loose signal that his dad has trademarked? You're killin' me.
ReplyDeleteDon't listen to the nut jobs at La Leche. Your boob could literally fall off and they would tell you to pick it up and 'keeping trying!' 'hang in there!' K-razy.
I nursed for three months and Adam said, "No more of this crap. Give me what's in That Interesting Bottle over there." And I thought only devil spawn gave their kids bottles, too, so I kept trying to nurse him, and Adam wouldn't cooperate, and my boobs got lopsided in massive, painful ways every three or four hours every damn day, and he kept getting skinnier and skinnier and pointing at that lucious, gleaming, milky Devil Bottle Over There, and so I finally gave up and stuck the Devil Bottle in his mouth and now he's 26 and a genius and has a book coming out next year. So there you go. La Leche, whatevs. Stick a bottle in 'em if you have to. It's all about how you HOLD them and look into their cute little EYES and CUDDLE them and tell them how FABULOUS they are, anyhow, not about whether they're getting their nourishment through this sort of nipple or that sort of nipple. God, the things we do to poor new moms. You deserve a medal, Megan. Just don't pin it to your boob.
ReplyDeleteBefore I read the rest of the post, I had to jump to the comments because of the MRSA in the title. Two of my classmates (social work) took internships at hospitals. The second week both of them came in to class and said "MAN! That Mursa is a really shitty epidemic! Why aren't we trying to cure THAT instead of cancer?" And I had to show them that it wasn't a disease, per se, as it was a staph infection. They were concerned about the high rates of mursa and why they hadn't seen it on the news.
ReplyDeleteI love your ailment posts. I do NOT love that you have ailments, but I'm glad you post about them.
So I am broken: you didn't post a picture, so I had to go google image search that. I'm so sorry! Glad you went to the ER. And DAMN the ER doctor for being cute when it's something nipple-related and not a broken bone or something.
Your baby boy is adorable. And the breastfeeding propaganda is CRAP.
HOLY ES WORD. You are a hero. I JUST had mastitis and I thought I had died. But to have MRSA and to continue to pump during this. Insane.
ReplyDeleteI'm SOO glad to hear you are on the up and up. And if it's any consolation, your little man is a baby stud. Totally cute. :)
Holy crap! I was determined to breastfeed but I don't know if I would have prevailed thru all that! You rock!! (And I'm glad you are better now!)
ReplyDeleteAnd now that you are all healthy and crap I hope we get a lot more pictures of Semisi!! Too cute!
Rock on!
oh no! I went straight to the ER the second time I got mastitis because it was hell! And to have mrsa on top of that...what a way to start motherhood. Glad to hear you're feeling better..
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