this post could also be called "drug abuse" or "enjoying prescription drugs."
i woke up during the night to feed brady and automatically started nursing him on my right side because it was most uncomfortable. as soon as he latched on the intense pain woke me up enough to realize "i fed him on the right side for the last feeding, my left side should be more uncomfortable" and "ohmyheavenssayitisn'tso, i know this pain like it was yesterday! i have a clogged milk duct." so long after brady had fallen asleep, i lay awake in my bed dreading the pain anticipated to ensue over the next few days. i had clogged milk ducts with abigail. one after another after another after another. sometimes two on the same side and freqently alternating sides so that i was in constant pain as one side would just start to heal and the other side would just be starting hurt again. if you haven't experienced this, the closest i can come to describing it is that it's like a super bad migraine or bruised feeling all the time, especially if you move or something touches you, and then when you nurse, it feels like your baby is sucking shards of glass out of your nipples. literally shards of glass. i remember gasping so loudly when abigail would latch on that it would scare her and she would pop off and start crying. and then when i finally got her to stay on and keep eating i just cried the entire feeding. so so painful. but as if that wasn't enough, i also started to develop flu symptoms which i later learned are the signs of mastitis. babycenter type websites will describe clogged ducts and mastitis as "tender, hot, swollen, and painful" but forums online about clogged ducts and mastitis will sound more like, "stabbing pain deep in breast + searing nipple pain = ? is this mastitis?"*
anyways, i was dreading the pain but determined to avoid the chills, aches, fever, etc. that i had forever (okay, maybe it was only a week but it was horrendous) with abigail. and then around 12:30 today it hit. the chills, the fever, the full body achiness, and a bad headache too... just for kicks i guess. i got baby girl down for nap and looked for a thermometer. i had a temp of 100.6 which i was grateful wasn't higher... but the best part? i found a ton of 600mg motrin and hydrocodone left over from my super bad recovery with abigail. enough to get me through the weekend (no time to go to a doctor today) so i could handle the pain and try to get brady to just nurse this away! hallelujah. so i popped in one of each and you wouldn't believe the transformation! i can now see why prescription drug abuse is so prevalent these days. i went from flu like symptoms and shards of glass nipple pain and crying in bed that i just can't do this to actually being able to nurse my child without crying, loving my baby, and feeling normal (so long as i sit in bed and don't move)! i promise i'm just kidding about that drug abuse part but what an answer to my prayers to have enough drugs on hand to help me through this! elder bednar didn't specifically address "when tender mercies come in the form of precription drug pain relief" but i know anyways that this is exactly that.
so i checked my old posts and apparently when i got this with abigail it was right around the three week mark too, according to a milk duct reference in this post. when my next kid is 2 weeks old, you better believe i'm going to do everything i can to prevent this from happening again!
*that's a direct quote.
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