Boohoo again

Worst motherhood day so far. Gawd, this is hard. Nips hurt so much, they both burn now and turn white. I feel faint when they latch the pain is so bad. Pumping and bottle feeding. Not ideal but have to have a break. They have fed constantly today and I have not left the nursery until 3pm!! Rang up Bug in floods of tears, he came home and sent me to bed!

On a good note. The juniors are beginning to sleep well at night. They have a long first stretch of 5 hours between feeds so I can sometime s get a 2.5 maybe even 3 hour stretch of blissful, heavenly, precious sleep in. I love sleep. Sleep rules.

Candida diet

I have now cut out all sugars as part of the candida diet to beat this thrush. The diet can be 4 to 6 months long!!!! I am in mourning for cake, biscuits, bread, fruit, fruit juice, milk...any lactose, glucose, fructose...alchohol, refined foods. In short the list of what you CAN eat is shorter so I can eat nothing but meat (not processed) and veggies. I have bought some pumpernickel bread to eat as i need some snacking food so i hope that passes.

Here is the diet. Thrush is that bad that I have given up on cake. Never ever thought I would do that.

We have to boil everything my nipples and breast milk touches for 20 mins in vinegar water - that is as well as sterilsing them, I wash my hands and nipples in vinegar water and the washing is now at the hottest setting with vinegar instead of conditioner.

Dr to cure thrush I hope and pray

We finally got to see a specialist doctor yesterday 2 weeks after this started and it was not a moment too soon. the thrush has gone right into the juniors and they have hideous nappy rash (symptomatic of thrush), Joe had the sore patches in his mouth and Helen has them at the back of her throat - hence the reluctance to feed. Poor mites. Joe also had his tongue tie cut AGAIN! so he was even more upset. Explains how the thrush came about. Joe was biting me now and again and he did not have the best latch. It is already better but the bites were how the thrush got in probably.

We all have to have oral meds and creams, the pharma bill was $600! What would a less fortunate person do if they got this?

Anyway, I am using a lactation aid to replace some of the expressed milk bottle feeds and get them used to the breast again. Joe is fine but I am worried that Helen will end up a bottle baby...or just very skinny. I am on Motilium only until my supply is up again - not sure about this drug at all but desperate to keep BFeeding.

I get lots of advice form AJ and professionals but I also read Dr Jack Newmans website, he is a BF doctor and has a comprehensive load of info.

Dr Jacks site

AND this one too (bad name, good site).

http://www.kellymom.com/

Nipple THRUSH!

Please, can I be put back into labour rather than face this pain???

Well, what a couple of weeks this has been. THings were getting much easier with feeding the juniors and they had gone to 6 feeds a day, they were sleeping longer stretches at night and I was tandeming them on my ownsome!

THEN....I got a milk blister, holy jesus it hurt so much that that booby was out of commission until the following evening when i popped it, heated it etc etc.

The next day at my 6 week check up all was fine I was breast feeding again and they were happy weight gaining little monsters.

THEN I got thrush of the nipples.

(drum roll) They were feeling a bit crispy and worn out - much like how I feel all over these days and I got joe to latch on and promptly started to pass out in pain.....the symptoms are horrible and very very painful, all of the innards of my boobs had shooting stabbing pains, the nipple itself felt clamped and turned white and then burnt for hours - it was impossible to feed them on the breast. I can take pain but this shot thru my skull and curled my toes the wrong way.

AJ was fast to diagnose thrush (i had no idea, i thought it was a bad latch) and once i read the symptoms i realised it was a nasty case. Helen has been quite badly affected and will not feed at all now on my breast - she fusses and cries and pulls away and will not, even if really hungry feed on my breast. I cannot even wear tops or cuddle them as the slightest brush is too painful. Poor things have to look at me from the bouncy chair when they actually want a cuddle form Mum :-( boohoo. Self pity moment.

The A* Team

Well I said good bye to my Mum and sister who had a longer stay due to flights being grounded due to the volcano in Iceland hehe!

They were amazing, amazing amazing. They took it in turns every feed to help me get them latched, move their arms out of the way, wipe away slippery milk, take them away and change nappies, cook, clean - everything.

Having kids of my own has made me realise what my parents did for me and I am so grateful to my Mum for being a good mum. She had suprise twins after having had untreated HG for 9 months - can you imagine? I have been so critical of her at times and spent my time with her apologising for being a horrible teenager!

I hope my kids do not grow up and be horrible to me. After all of this it would break my heart.

6 days in and Tandeming

Well, they are 6 days old and I cannot stand letting one cry while I take forever to feed the other one so I started tandeming today. Somehow I started it on my own but it is really hard. They move their arms in the way all the time so you cannot latch them and they are so floppy and small. They fall asleep and need constant waking up. My milk spray out (massive let down) so I need help wiping all the slip away or they cannot latch.

Boohoo

Last night I rang my mum in the UK in utter despair, Helen had been crying for hours on end and wanting to feed non-stop. Their little cries go stright into my nervous system and teamed with utter exhaustion I feel terrible. I know that if this schedule continues I will most certainly end up with PND. Mum and Liz arrive in 12 days - That feels like forever, every day seems to pass very slowly and I am getting terrified of the night as the evenings approach. I have spoken to my doula about how hard I am finding the nights and she is doing 2 consecutive nights with us before Bug returns to work. That is still over a week away and I wish I could fast forward, it feels like forever.

I sound really down don’t I? This is the hardest thing ever, I do not know how much of what I am feeling is from the operation or the adjustment to motherhood or the exhaustion. You certainly learn extreme new limits being a mum. People say how hard and tiring it is - but I had no idea! I am beyond exhausted and my world has shrunk to the size of my sofa where I just feed feed and feed.