It's really been an adventure providing breast milk for Rebekah. I am really ready to just give up on getting her to nurse at all because she has really done some damage! Pumping milk for her is an adventure as well. Even though she sleeps through the night, I have to get up at least once during the night to empty my breasts...or else face painful consequences. Last night I went a little longer than usual before rising from bed to "empty myself out". I had been lying on my side and woke up with a wet bra on that side! After expressing some milk for Rebekah, I went back to bed.

This morning I woke up with a painfully-sore breast...the same one that had leaked profusely during the night. Pumping milk didn't help. If I weren't lactating, I might have though I had breast cancer! The problem was probably a plugged duct. A morning of relaxing, running hot water over myself, and expressing lots of milk eventually solved the problem. Oh, Rebekah and I also had it out when I tried to get her to nurse on that side. She cried, I cried...and she eventually won - I got the bottle for her.

Today I had a follow-up appointment with the obstetrician who delivered Rebekah. I have been so spoiled in the last 3 months of my pregnancy...going to a midwife who is very quick to see me most of the time and takes lots of time at the appointment to go over things with me. We waited half an hour for the doctor today and then he spent about 5 minutes with us. He looked at my incision and indicated that it was healing well. He told me I can start to increase my activities - maybe drive to the store for milk or something. I think he thinks I'm taking it a little easier than I am. Little did he know I already spent a couple hours this afternoon cleaning out our fridge, washing the 2 loads of dirty dishes and doing 3 loads of laundry (there's plenty more)...all while I kept Rebekah effectively lulled to sleep in her carseat on top of the dryer! Right now the only things slowing me down are fatigue and pain in my middle-back.

Rebekah has developed her own bedtime routine...not the bedtime routine I wanted her to have, but who am I to wake a sleeping baby to change her into pajamas? Last night and tonight, she fell asleep in my arms around 9-10pm while I was watching TV. When I was ready for bed, I carried her up and laid her in bed, fully expecting her to wake up starving around midnight or 1AM. She didn't. Instead, she's decided she likes this way of sleeping through the night. Tomorrow night I'll try putting her in the bedside co-sleeper and see what difference that makes.