The Growing Caldwell Family

Here I am at work pumping.  A very familiar routine after doing it for over a year with Sarah Graves and nearly that long (gasp, is it really possible?) with Charlie.  Only it is feeling different today.  See I know it is almost over with Charlie.  He doesn't want my milk in a bottle or a cup.  I am told that he drinks an ounce or two from the bottle and throws it down!  He does nurse some during the day on the weekends and that's why I continue pumping - so the milk will be there when he nurses those days. I spent my entire time pumping for Sarah Graves worried that demand would exceed the supply.  That by working I was going to end up short changing her and there wouldn't be enough milk.  With hard work and dedication, that never happened.  My supply has been good with Charlie, except for that brief time when a change in diet caused a major drop in supply.  I have worked really hard to build up a huge supply in the deep freezer in ca...

For several weeks I had a lot of discomfort when Charlie nursed, mostly on the left side.  At first I thought he had nursed too long at night and it was sore.  Then, it hurt to pump and I really didn't want him to nurse at all.  That's when I started googling.  I wanted to google something like, "nursing feels like being stabbed with a hot poker!" That's how it felt.  It was totally different than the pain of a clogged duct.  It felt like it was burning and anything touching it hurt. I read about the saliva of teething babies bothering mom's skin, having a milk blister where milk gets trapped and dries causing a clog, and thrush was another possibility.  The descriptions for most of these said it would affect both sides, but for me it was really just the left.  I let it go for a day or two waiting for some more definitive symptom to identify the problem.  The area didn't really look any different.  It kept getting worse so I started goog...