My Nursing Story

by Heather Armstrong

When my daughter Tempest was born, she latched on within seconds, and continued to nurse constantly for the next few hours. Like most newborns, she didn't have the best latch, and when she finally came up for air my nipple was blistered and sore. I figured the discomfort would pass, but it did not.

Over the next few days, it only got worse, to the point where I cried and shook when hearing her cries. I dreaded the pain that came with nursing. Eventually the blister burst, creating a huge raw wound that bled at every feeding. To my dismay, my baby would spit up blood after particularly painful nurslings. My midwife spent hours of every day at our home, teaching me relaxation techniques and mixing comfrey compresses to help me heal faster.

After almost two weeks of no change, I saw a lactation consultant. She told me that unless this wound had time to heal, it would continue to reopen at every feeding and may lead to mastitis. At the time, that was a term I was not familiar with other than stories of how terrible it could be, so I knew I didn't want that.

For the next five days I nursed on one side, and pumped every two hours on the other. Nothing can come close to the power of a baby's mouth for draining a full breast, and unfortunately the pump was no exception. I developed a very sore plugged duct, and a fever of 103. The breast infection that followed was not pleasant. I spent three days in bed, on antibiotics, trying to recover. My baby was three weeks old now, and not one day had gone by without problems and pain. Eventually, I recovered from the mastitis and stopped the antibiotics.

Almost instantly the plugged duct that had never gone away flared up into something much more painful. Two days later I was scheduled for surgery to have a massive abscess removed under general anesthesia, because it was too large to be done with a local. An abscess wound cannot be stitched due to a need to drain, and for the next four months I changed bandages twice a day and nursed as much as possible to try and maintain a failing milk supply at fault of a clumsy surgeon who severed milk ducts. It didn't help that my daughter eventually refused to nurse on that side due to the slow flow of milk. By the time she was four months old I had a two-cup difference in size!

Over the course of our healing, I developed mastitis three more times, two more plugged ducts, but thankfully none required surgery. I learned how to fend off mastitis when I felt it creeping up on me, I became so well versed in breastfeeding that I began counseling others, which eventually grew into a desire to become an actual breastfeeding counselor. A work in progress, at this point.

My daughter is now eight months old, and we are now nursing beautifully, as seen by her hefty 21 pound frame! Our problems finally ended, and we got the hang of it, without a drop of formula nor the 'aid' of a rubber nipple. I am eternally grateful for the 24-hour support of my midwife, my mother, my husband and my friends - without them I fear I wouldn't have made it through. I wish for every mother to have the same support, and urge those facing problems to seek the help of a breastfeeding counselor, or certified lactation consultant. You can do it, too.