One week

It's been a week since baby is born and gosh it's probably also one of the longest weeks in my life so far! I thought giving birth was the toughest bit and I could just 'chill' and relax and rest at confinement centre. How wrong was I!!!!

Don't get me wrong, the confinement centre is lovely and it deserves a post of its own. It's this whole breast feeding business that is hard, and I mean really really hard. First of all, when I checked out of hospital on Thursday, my nipples were bleeding and cracked. I tried to bear the pain at hospital as I hardly got any sleep the three nights I stayed. I was tired but not sleepy, all I wanted to do was to spend time looking at baby and I just couldn't get enough of her. When nurses at confinement centre saw my nipples, they said they were serious cracks and suggested I stop breast feeding baby for a few days till they are fully recovered. Instead, they hand squeeze my boobies and get milk in a bottle they then cup feed baby. At first, I was relieved to hear it as the pain of feeding baby was getting to me. Little did I know it was the beginning of a long journey. Milk hadn't fully came through on Thursday and so we had to savor every single drop of milk. Initially we could only squeeze out 30 ml from both boobies. And every time we had to rush the whole process as baby would be crying hungry. By Saturday morning, nurse managed 60 ml which was good news. This was carried out every three hours including the night.

It came from no where that I started to shiver uncontrollably on Saturday night and it turned out I had a temperature of 40.2 degrees. Nurses panicked and so I was rushed to A & E at 11pm. I had plugged milk ducts which would cause flu-like symptoms i.e. fever, achy muscles, headache and just feeling weak in general and I suffered all of the above. So the doctor prescribed some antibiotics and I have to take them for 7 days till the infection is gone.

Therefore there is a red patch on my left boobie and god it hurts so much just by touching it let alone squeezing it but massaging it is essential. Nurses here are wonderful, they massage my boobies every time they squeeze boobie milk and it's a hard job for them too as they really need to work at it to massage the hard lump. And what does it feel like? Imagine a serious bruise and someone tries to hit it with a hammer - continuously for at least 10 minutes! Yes, that's what it feels like!

Here are some photographs:

Baby and I

Like father, like daughter

freshly hand squeezed by Tao and man, was it hard work or was it hard work!!!! It took him 70 minutes to get to 60ml

and this is few days later!! Almost doubled the amount and need I say I was almost in tears!

So this is Week 1 and it seemed eternal. Though I enjoyed every moment with baby and still am fascinated by her every movement and expression! They are priceless!