Before giving birth, I didn’t fill our home library with baby books (I merely skimmed parts of Babywise), and I only took two classes – one which was very ‘Baby 101’ and another on breastfeeding. I left the hospital, where the latter class was held, slightly traumatized. After watching video on video of women self-expressing (which I didn’t even know you could do), I began to worry about the process. Was it going to hurt? What if I couldn’t produce milk? What if Isla had issues latching?

Well, just a few weeks later, Isla was born on Wednesday, June 4, and the very next day, I knew the answer to my first question – yes, it was going to hurt. Contrary to what the nurse had told us (“It only hurts if you’re doing it wrong!”), I felt agonizing pains shooting through my chest every time Isla latched on. I had arrived at the hospital prepared with Lansinoh Soothies Gel Pads and Lansinoh Lanolin Cream, thinking I’d use both to battle any potential discomfort. It turns out, the initial pain can only be slightly reduced with both of these products (which I do highly recommend). 48 hours after Isla was born, I began dreading breastfeeding, knowing that the pain was so severe. I would hold Sasha or my mom’s hand and squeeze it tightly for the first 60 seconds until the pain would dull slightly. I thought to myself, ‘I would rather be in labor than go through this 7 times a day!’

After arriving home from the hospital, I couldn’t take it any more and broke down crying on the Friday night. My mom is amazing and quickly ran to Walgreens, as she told me about Medela Contact Nipple Shields that she promised would help.  And ohmygosh, did they ever. I honestly think I would have become a strictly pump and bottle feeder had I not discovered the nipple shields. They were life savers.

Four days later, we were busy celebrating Sasha’s birthday with his family at our house at lunchtime. I began to feel feverish and achy, which I worried was the flu. By the time my family arrived for dinner festivities, I had no appetite and felt awful. My mom was staying at our house to help, and she asked to see my boob. When I showed her, she quickly clicked around Google and diagnosed me with mastitis (bright red splotchy patches on my chest made it pretty obvious!). I made an appointment with my ob-gyn the next day, and she confirmed that I had this infection and said there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. Cue me sobbing. Ugly, tired tears. She comforted me and reminded me that being a mom is incredibly difficult and that it would all get easier. She scheduled an appointment with a breast specialist the next day and put me on antibiotics in the meantime.

I went with my mom and Isla to the specialist, and she told me that I didn’t need to get the infection drained (something I had read about on the internet and was petrified). I was just to take two prescriptions for 10 days until the mastitis was completely gone. That was a fun experience, as one medicine was to be taken with food every three hours, and the other was to be taken 1 hour after eating every four hours. To a tired mom, that equation was like rocket science.