Day 9 and already setbacks...

After a generally good night where B got a bottle at 1 and 3 (but with the fall back time change, I don't know whether that was pre or post time change) and then slept until 6:30 when we were getting up to get ready.

We had our appointment with the lactation consultant (LC) at 8:30 and had definitely made progress by the end of the appointment. Our solution came with using shields which made everything go more smoothly and painfree. Pretty much, both B & I are doing everything right except the damage had been done by her chomping early on that thus propagated pain and more pain and her petite size made it hard for her to get everything in her mouth that she needed. At the appointment, I also had a lot of redness and firmness but I had not fever or other symptoms so there wasn't a concern for mastitis at that time.

Then, we get home...Heidi was still here so she got a bit of B time while I took a nap. Of course, as irony would have it (as irony seems to be the theme of our lives), I wake up from the nap with a fever to 101.4, chills, malaise, headache...all the classic "flu-like" symptoms of mastitis. After calling the LC, I just pumped every 30 minutes. Through this, we were to continue to nurse; however, breastfeeding has been causing me so much stress, pain, lack of sleep, frustration, etc that I decided to take a hiatus until everything has healed and will be exclusively pumping in the interim.

We're hoping this is a good decision...of course, I feel horrible about it as I feel like I've failed at it but at this point, it's something I need to do (and hopefully with my mom here, it will allow me to just rest and recooperate a bit).

We also wanted to try to feed her every 2 hours during the day to try to fill her up on calories so she would sleep maybe the 3 hour stretches at night (previously, she had been sleeping 3+ hours straight during the day but waking every 2-ish at night). She ate at 2, 4, 6, 8 (we put on her sleeping gown and began swaddling), and 10 (we put her in the crib and now we're heading to bed). So, hopefully things work out

With mom here, Erik headed back home today. He and dad set up the TV and dad was basking in HD and digital cable glory with all of its 50 inches of plasmaness....I think he just found Earth's equivalent of heaven.