nursing nuisances

In the land of breastfeeding...
Friday night Ivy slept through the night and I got a glorious 8 hours of sleep! In a row! I actually had to wake her up at 8am because my boobs were ready to burst. It's great to sleep, but actually not too great for the milk bags. If I go too long, I tend to get a bit engorged, then nothing comes out and it's painful. Last night was different. She got up at 2:30 and 6am, which is ok. Except when I got up at 6 this morning, I had another frickin' plugged duct. I've had this problem pretty much since she was born. Every few days it happened for a while. Now it had been a week at least since I had one. I can't describe how painful it is. I'd say worse than giving birth. The milk just keeps building behind it with nowhere to go, causing a big lump in your breast. The only thing to clear it is hot compresses, massage, and nursing. So needless to say, I was very upset this morning and even more discouraged than ever. I've been trying so hard not to give up on this. I already have a low milk supply, so I have to supplement anyway. But I was hoping it would get better. So far it hasn't. I really wanted to breastfeed her the first year, and it's really pissing me off that I can't do it and I'm having so many problems. I did set a short term goal of 3 months, and I want to at least stick to that, but it's getting hard. My hope was that my milk would build back up and I could stop the supplementing (feeding her formula through a small tube in the side of her mouth while she's nursing). Anyway, I was able to clear the plug in the shower this morning and I was very relieved. It was quite cool really. The plug came out, and the milk just started squirting out. I actually was able to squeeze out a half ounce into a bottle just by hand. Exciting for me, gross for you to hear about. Oh well. I feel better now.

She's waking up. Gotta go!