Nursing with the Enemy

It's amazing to me how many little details you let slip your mind from the first child in order to psych yourself up to create the second. While I clearly remembered crying due to H's poor latch (prior to discovering the glorious nipple shield), I neglected to remember before stepping under the pelting blast of the shower that first day home from the hospital that it 'may sting a little' in those first weeks. I quickly remembered the trick of aiming the shower head a little higher so that a gentle cascade of water trickles over your tender area (read: areola) instead of the direct nettle-like 'massaging' spray of the head.

You might ask yourself why I only found that out after returning home...that's right, my room aparrently had no warm water coming out of the faucet labeled hot so I got to use the 'irri-bottle' filled with glacial run-off which is, incidentally, not so soothing to the nether regions. Also, it took a hot shower, or a shower of any sort, off the menu. Thank the lord I had a VBAC, or it would have been a looooong four days in the hospital. I would have been writing a blog called Sex and the Nasty instead.

Back to the subject at hand. I was very relieved to find that C is a much better nurser that was H, as confirmed by the lactation consultant who visited me in the hospital. That said, there is a limit to what will fit into their tiny mouths in the beginning which, when coupled with the fact that normal people don't have something creating a vacuum on their chest about 8 hours of the day, creates a bit of what one might call tenderness.

After the first couple of nights home, and the initial cringe and quick intake of breath still preceded the rhythm of normal nursing, I turned to my mom and exclaimed "It feels like he's nursing with knives!" This, of course, made her laugh. Well, I guess that's not an 'of course' to everyone, but we are the family who responds to the discomfort of others by laughing because we're nervous. The moment being lightened, my mind started flooding with all the quotes about bad dentistry from the movies that H has watched a million times and I started blurting them out like I had tourette's causing more laughter, which caused C's latch to be off, which caused pain, so we laughed more, because nipple pain is HILARIOUS!

In short, if you hear me saying 'I'm a piranha!' or 'He's got teeth like Ginsu knives!' followed by me laughing, just chalk it up to being sleep deprived. Because if you ask for details, I'll give them, and I'm sure you don't want to hear that much about my breasts.

*On a side note, this is a little historic moment for the ole knitty as this is my 100th post! It's exciting for me to see an increased readership and I appreciate all the feedback I've received...keep the comments coming!

**The image is of Darla from Disney's Finding Nemo which is from where I've taken the "I'm a piranha" quote. 'Teeth like Ginsu knives' is from Curious George the movie.