From breast milk to formula...

Appetising, isn't it. Poor kid. Five months of breast milk and now this.

For Rachael

She wants a badge? She gets a badge.

Giving up

If there is one thing I know about myself, it is that I don't give up easily - whether it's writing a dissertation six weeks after giving birth, getting through rocky patches in our marriage, questioning my faith or breast feeding, I can stubbornly persist for quite some time! However, infected mastitis first reared its ugly head on 21 June and two months later, two hospital stays and two further flare-ups, I am still on antibiotics and struggling to shift the infection that sits in my right breast. After the third flare-up I decided to stop feeding on the right and risk an abscess forming if the infected milk leaked into the breast tissue - so far that hasn't happened, thankfully!

I've had two clear ultrasounds and am now just hand expressing once a day on the right while feeding twice a day on the left, but it will not be long before Ainsworth feeds entirely on formula. The pain, discomfort and emotional lows of feeding through mastitis have not stopped me wanting to continue feeding and, rather strangely, I feel somewhat cheated into giving up. I know it is probably the best thing to do for my health, and I really don't want Ainsworth to continue having diluted antibiotics, but it is proving emotionally quite difficult to do. Hormones are a very strange thing...

Ainsworth has been an absolute treasure through all of the hospital stays and has taken to bottle feeding like a dream. We really could not have asked for a more compliant baby! It is nice to see Trevor feeding him - and has given me a break from the night feeds - but I still feel a little 'embarassed' when feeding from a bottle in public! I want to wear a badge saying 'breast fed for five months'.

And so now we need to start seriously considering the other weaning process - from milk to solids... This parenting lark is full of quandries and questions, so there's never a dull moment. But actually, I'd quite like a dull moment right now.

Been too long

Where the heck have we been? You may well ask.

Well, the fact is we've been somewhat pre-occupied, and blogging has not exactly been a priority. So here's a very brief summary of where we're at...

• Ainsworth is five and a half months old, sleeping well, laughing a lot, and coping with formula milk for reasons which will soon become clear.
  
  
• Rachael has been in a bad way. Her Mastitis just kept on coming back, and seemed resistant to antibiotics. She ended up having two stays in hospital to have them intravenously - first time just for one night, but the second time it was four nights' stay. She's through the worst now, but remains on antibiotics, probably until she finally finishes breastfeeding. Since last Tuesday, when she went into hospital, she's been feeding only on one side, and now she's dropped that down to two feeds a day. next week, just the one. And then slowly reducing that to zero.
  

• I've coped okay with a very different schedule, as I've generally had Ainsworth at home, taking him into hospital for feeds as and when. Nights are interesting, aren't they?

That'll do for now. It's been a difficult few weeks.