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.