Lasquisha is poorly :(

When I told a good friend that I had mastitis he laughed. The comment that followed was "When I hear mastitis I think of cows!" 
Luckily, I found it funny, something that cannot be said for the mastitis itself.

Apparently, the main reason women give up breastfeeding is because of mastitis, and I can see why. Bloody OUCH! For my it was very sudden, and looking back I can pinpoint the exact reason for getting it, and if I had a tie machine I would go back and sort it out!

It was a Friday morning, and I was feeding from a very engorged Lasquisha. She was so engorged I had to hold her steady whilst D latched and drank.
I held very tightly and didn't massage or move like 'they' tell you to. As it turns out, I was causing a blockage, which in hours turned into mastitis.

I was getting my haircut as it was the last day my husband had off before going back to work, and as I sat there the pain in Lasquisha was getting worse and worse, and then the shivers started.

From when I had been told, flu like symptoms were a sure sign of mastitis. DAMN!!! This was week 3, so I had found everything this week so hard, and now I had this to contend with. I genuinely thought I was failing. How could I be getting it so wrong, that I had made myself ill.

I cried at my husband (I think for about the 4th time that day) and we went straight to the GP to see if they could help. Sure enough, a prescription for antibiotics was written immediately, and advice given to ease the pain - keep feeding from it, express it and try to clear the blockage.

I knew Roger was fine to keep feeding if I just expressed off Lasquisha, so determined and stubborn I kept going. I say stubborn, because by this point my husband had bought a tub of formula milk because he knew how hideous I was finding breastfeeding, and this was just another thing to add to the list of reasons I disliked feeding my baby....

A horrible feeling.

I felt rotten both physically and emotionally. But the thought of giving up was more pain than I was physically in, and I had to keep going through the pain, the tears and the exhaustion.

The pain from the mastitis subsided pretty quickly, but the flu symptoms stuck around for a little while, just to make things easier.......

The troubles that followed were bearable and something I am still recovering from to this day. My milk supply in Lasquisha dropped massively, and my let down slowed to an almost stop. So, Roger became D's sole source of milk.

Needless to say, I have been lopsided ever since.

The journey continues......