Not Invincible


After having a pretty good week and feeling ready to conquer the world or at least my little corner of it, on Thursday afternoon, I ended up with mastitis. I shouldn't complain. I've had other complications from breast-feeding, like cracked and bleeding nipples, engorgement, and the like, but not this one, so I was probably due. It came on suddenly. Thursday morning, I was walking and feeling good, but Thursday night, I was swollen and in pain and had a pounding headache. That night was miserable. I had a fever, chills, and every muscle ached. By morning, I had hardly slept and felt miserable. I called my doctor's office as soon as they opened, only to be told that "the next available appointment is on Tuesday." TUESDAY? Hadn't I mentioned I was dying here? I must have sounded desperate (and I was about to cry) because they put a nurse on the phone and after listening to my symptoms, she called in a prescription for some penicillin-based antibiotics. They seem to be working, because Saturday was much better.

After sleeping peacefully for the first two weeks of her life, awake for just an hour once or twice a day, Harmony woke up this week. She's awake for much longer periods of time and has had a harder time soothing herself back to sleep. Which has been a lot of fun, though not so much fun when it happens at night. Friday night, she was awake from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday night, she was awake for an hour at 2 a.m., and last night, she was awake from 1 in the morning until 2:30. She was happy as could be as long as I held her. She'd even be good when I put her in her bassinet to (hopefully) drift off to sleep. I'd stumble over to my bed and lie down for a few minutes. Just as I was starting to drift off, she'd give out a wail and we were back in the recliner, rocking and enjoying each other. And truthfully, I love those moments in the middle of the night when all the world is quiet and it's just me and my baby. I love touching her little fingers and having them wrap around mine and marveling at how small and perfect she is.

And while Harmony's been more wakeful, she's also been more interactive, and it was sweet irony that it was Friday, my horrible sick day, that she gave me her first social smile, and all-out grin that seemed to say, "But I'm worth it, aren't I?"

While she was talking and grinning at me, I tried to catch it on camera. This was the best I could do:

Comments

3in3mom said…
so sorry to hear that--I had a small bout of that when I was nursing Hannah and it was misery. Not fun. . . wish we could have seen ya when we were there. . .

We'll be there again Thanksgiving time.