And We're Done

Breastfeeding Louis...blah, blah, blah. I am sure everyone is sick to death of hearing about it. We are officially done. I had high hopes of things turning around last week when he started latching on several times a day. It was painful for me, because his latch was still so shallow, but I figured I could power through whatever was going to get him through to a better place.

Fast forward to Thursday night. Let me set the scene. It was about 9:00 pm and Louis was in my lap laying on his Boppy pillow. He had been nursing for the past 45 minutes or so and seemed to be in a relatively good groove. It felt like one million sharp little knives when he latched, but then the pain subsided after about 30 seconds, so I figured his latch couldn't be all that bad. Things were going swimmingly until out of nowhere he pulled off, lifted his head, let out the drunkest hobo burp of all time and then sprayed me, himself, the Boppy, the chair, the floor, and the living room rug with barf. BVZ came running in with towels and flipped on the light, and that's when we saw it.

A baby crime scene. Not only did Louis barf 12 gallons worth of liquid, it was bloody liquid. All his barf was dark pink and there were strings of blood everywhere. Believe me when I say it couldn't have been more disgusting. My first instinct was, well crap, I guess we have to go to the emergency room, but then I wised up and looked at my boob. Which was, um. Let's just say, lacerated. In a big, bad way. We were confident the blood was actually my blood that he had ingested but we called the advice nurse anyway just for reassurance and she confirmed my diagnosis.

Letting him continue to try was out of the question for me pain-wise and even pumping the next day was excruciating. So, we made the decision as a family (well, Norah and Louis didn't really get a vote), to be done. I don't doubt that there are those out there they would continue to try, but after the carnage I reached a point where I could say that I had given it what I had in me to give and I was okay with the extent of my efforts. There is still some lingering pain and on Saturday night I was pretty sure there was the beginnings of an infection going on, but I started taking the remainder of my mastitis antibiotics (I know, I know you are supposed to finish all of them but after a week it just seems like overkill and I like to have a bit of a supply laying around....) and I think it's fine.

Lou hasn't seem to notice and is continuing to put down his bottles just fine. It's reassuring to have made the decision, even though it is not necessarily the one I had hoped for.