Battle of the Bulge

There comes a point in everyone's life where they are given cause to take a step back and reflect on their own "deal" - their life, their mission, their relationships, the direction of those relationships - and make a true turning point decision.

That time has come.

First, some background:

I have a (several?) clogged milk ducts in one of my boobs. This happened once before in the other boob and it developed into a low-grade breast infection that landed me with a fever and directions to take echinacea and vitamin C to fight the infection, make and eat a shittake mushroom soup made with (ancient Chinese medicine) astragalus root and a clove of garlic added each time you dish up. Also, nurse the baby with her nose and chin pointed toward the blockage as much as possible and apply castor oil with heat before taking a warm shower and massaging the oil in. Worked. Plugged ducts became unplugged, lah dee dah and off we go.

Because I am not one who likes to keep a good thing to herself, a week ago there's another lump, this time in the other boob. Shit. Only a slight fever this time that I'm able to knock out pretty quickly, but the lump, on the other hand, is hanging around. I've done the soup, the castor oil, the echinacea, vitamin C and now I'm taking a lecithin supplement to make the ducts "slippery." Babe is feeding with her nose pointing toward the blockage every night when she feeds side-lying.

Here we come back to the point - the time for pause.

The midwife said that I can also have dear hubster...nurse...because he is easier to manuever around and I can tell him if he's hitting the right spot. I love LOVE my midwives - I will cry when I have my last appointment with them - and the following should in no way reflect on how much they mean to my life.

We have been all for the natural, traditional way of doing things during this pregnancy and, for the most part, during this baby's life. Homeopathic rather than western medicine, no medical intervention, hospital birth, etc.

However, and this is a big however for me personally, when all is said and done I love my husband for more than just his hippie tendencies (luckily, not bathing is not among them) and I want him to love me back for the same reasons. Hence, the reason I will continue to wear a bra during the day even though I'm breastfeeding and why I will not ask him to nurse on me. My relationship with my daughter is vitally important to me, but my relationship with my husband is sacred, in big part because it allows my strong relationship with my daughter to grow and flourish. I want to be able to return to that relationship with him at some point.