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20
Izzy
It Burns!
“Ouch, ouch, ow, ow, ow.” I push Jim away. His heavy arm rests against my chest, and fire ants eat my boobs from the inside out.
He battles against sleep, rubs his face and squints through tired eyes. “Bubs? What’s the matter?”
“Hop up.” I shove him off with superhuman strength born from desperation. “Get off. Get off!” My chest is on fire. My boobs are hard as rocks.
“Izzy!” He snaps up straight in an instant, his large body dwarfing this tiny little hospital bed. “You need to tell me what’s wrong.”
“My boobs!” It’s like I want to brush the stinging insects away, but they’reundermy skin. I pull my sticky gown forward and cry out at the rock-solid lumps that sit where my boobs used to. “It hurts so much.”
My eyes snap up as the nurse rushes into my room, then back to Jim whose hand continues to crush the emergency call button.
“Good morning, guys. Is something wrong?”
“Her boobs.” Jim pulls a shirt over his head in a rush. “She said they hurt.”
With a casual smile that I’d like to permanently rip off her face, the nurse stops the emergency call beeping and steps toward me. “I was waiting for this.” She pulls my gown forward and takes a peek. “Painful?”
Well, fuckingduh!“Super painful. What’s wrong with them?”
Jim steps around the bed and takes Bean from her tiny little see-through crib. My baby was discharged from the NICU last night. Now she’s graduated to a regular ward as she waits for me to be well enough to leave. She’s officially wire free. Her face is still bruised, and her skin tends toward an odd yellow, but her bloodwork is perfect and she’s finished with foot pricks and antibiotics.
For the first time in her life, she wears regular baby outfits – that Tina was sure to bring a whole bunch in pink – instead of only a diaper and blanket.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She steps back to make notes in my file. “Your milk has arrived, Mama.”
“Just arrived?” My head whips around to my not-exactly-emaciated baby. “Has she been starving the last few days?”
“No, she’s been drinking colostrum, which is plenty for a newborn, but now your milk’s officially in. She’ll be plumping up real quick.” She smiles. “I bet she kept you up a lot last night, cluster feeding, huh?”
“She’s been feeding almost non-stop since she first latched on.”
“That’s really good. She knows what she’s doing, so let her run the show. Let her nurse when she asks for it. Breastfeeding is kind of a supply and demand thing. She’ll let your body know how much she wants, and when she wants it. Your supply will adjust. In the meantime, I know your breasts are probably sore. I’ll bring you some Advil and cold packs, but that’s about all you can do. This pain will go away in a couple days, but for right now, feed her. It’ll relieve some pressure.”
Disappointment crushes me as her ‘there’s nothing I can do’ flashes through my brain like obnoxious – and painful – neon lights. I’m in a hospital. If there’s anywhere on this planet you could expect to find pain relief, it should be here. I was hoping she’d fix it.
“Here you go, Bubs.” Jim passes the tiny pink bundle and helps me sit back. As soon as her face touches my chest, she comes awake and her mouth begins searching.
Cold sweat trickles along my spine as her hungry lips search, search, clamp down. “Ouch!” Tears spring to my eyes and my toes curl up. “It wasn’t like this before. It hurts so bad.” My hands itch to get her off, to unclamp her vice and shoo her back to Jim’s arms. “My nipples hurt, a lot. Like, separate from the full boobs, thing.”
With a sigh, the nurse sits on the edge of my bed. “Listen, Iz. More often than not, everyone, everywhere you go, is screaming that if it hurts, then you’re doing it wrong.” She shakes her head. “I find that a little misleading. It’s going to hurt for the first little while. You’ve never had a vacuum seal on your nipples before, and now you do. Around the clock. That’s going to take some getting used to. You’ll know the difference between a bad latch pain, and a getting used to it pain. Just concentrate on getting your latch correct, and everything else will fall into place. If you ever start to feel feverish, fluey, or you get warm lumps on your breasts, speak to your lactation consultant or your doctor.”
I want to cry. I want to just pause. Put my life on pause. It’s not fair that my nipples are in as much pain as my vagina. Why can’t it be one at a time?
“And you,” she points at Jim, “feed her, lots. Lots of peanut butter. Lots of oats. And in her particular case because of her blood loss, lots of iron rich foods. Breastfeeding will make her hungry, save your life and just feed her.”
He rests his hand on my thigh and leans in close to watch Bean. “I’ll look after her. I promise.”
“Apart from that, I actually have good news for you guys. You can go home today. Not until this afternoon, not until after the pediatrician does his last round and checks Lucy over, but break out the bubbly, because you’ll be sleeping in your own bed tonight.”
She smiles like this is amazing news. I expect it should be, but for right now, I’m scared.
I’m a twenty-year-old single mother. I have no job outside my brothers’ gym. I have no experience with babies. Hell, a couple weeks ago, I had no home or car, either. And yet, just like that, they let me take a human being home. A human I only just met.
Suddenly, going home doesn’t sound like such a great idea.
“That’s so great.” Jim’s eyes work to catch mine. “Right, Bubs? We can go home soon.”
I don’t look at him. I don’t answer him. I simply watch my hungry baby tear my boob to shreds – but today’s silver lining; the more she drinks, the softer my breast becomes.
