Round 2...

Of mastitis hit me full force today. I sure am eating my words from when I questioned how moms couldn't catch it before it got too bad.

Last night, before we went to bed, I noticed that I had a little spot on Lefty that felt kind of bruised. I never had a knot or "wedge" which is a term often used to describe a plugged duct. So, in other words, I was never over-full or went longer than usual between feeds. Because of all this I just decided that I must have just had a tiny plug that Ayden cleared because that scenario would explain the bruised feeling in the absence of other plugged duct signs.

I got home pretty late and didn't put Ayden in bed until around 11pm. That little trooper slept until 4:30an (that's 5 and a half hours!!) and then woke again at 6:30 which is when I brought him to bed with me. Then he proceeded to sleep in until close to 9am. I unfortunately woke up a lot because I had terrible drainage that was making my throat tickle which made me need to cough and drink water. At least I didn't have to get out of bed every time I woke though! <-- That's me focusing on the positive...

Sleeping in!

So back to the mastitis.  I woke up feeling pretty crumby but chocked it up to the drainage and cold symptoms I was experiencing.  Then as I was getting ready in my birthday suite I looked at myself and noticed the all too familiar redness over the "bruised" spots.  Uh oh...  I went straight down and took a dose of lecithin and took my temperature.  98.0*.  No problem.  I got us ready to head out to dress rehearsal and all the way there I thought I was starting to feel achey and just super crumby all around.  Recital weekend is terrible timing for illness!  I made it through solo dress rehearsal, all of my students are in the solo show this year, and then took my temperature again.  99.1*.  Okay, slightly elevated...  I talked to David and we decided that I should go home and rest so that I might recover enough to go to the main show.

Hard at work!
He was sooo good at the recital venue!

We talked to my midwife and she suggested that I take my supplements and get rest as well as plenty of fluids for the next 24 hours before resorting to the antibiotics.  Antibiotics tend to go through the breast milk, mess with the flora in your baby's digestive tract giving them diarrhea.  Obviously we would resort to that if it got super serious but like I've said before, we like to try to kick things naturally over here if we can. David got me some infection fighting supplements (garlic and grape seed extract) and chicken broth on his way home from work.  When Ayden and I got home, my temp was up to 100.3* or so.  Luckily he was sleepy and we ended up taking a 2 hour nap together.  When I woke up, my temp was up to 102*.  I've just been resting and drinking fluids, taking my supplements and right now I'm ready for bed and it's back down to 101*.  Yay for my body doing its job!  Many people are quick to take medicine to bring a fever down because you feel so crumby but a fever is our body's way of fighting infection.  If you can handle the aches and chills for a bit, and monitor that it is dropping rather than rising along the way, it's not such a bad thing to sit back and let your body do its job.  Here's hoping that I wake up in a pool of sweat from it breaking completely!!  I HAVE to feel up for recital tomorrow night.  My mom is celebrating 40 years of owning her studio and we have some surprises in store for her that I just can not miss!

When I put Ayden to bed tonight, around 9:45pm, again a little late for him, he acted like he actually wanted to be in his crib.  He rolled over and went right to sleep.  I have a few theories bouncing around in my head about his change in sleep habits but I think I'll see how the next few days play out before discussing them.  I sure hope he sleeps as well tonight as he did last night because this mama needs her rest!

~Sarah