Thursday, February 24, 2011

hmmm...

So, they say when you choose a career path in nursing, that you generally choose one that has affected you deeply. I have always known that I wanted to go into women's health. That was a given. This past two weeks has definitely solidified that, but it's added to it as well. See, this past two weeks, I have been at war with my boobs. I want to exclusively breastfeed, but I am simply not producing enough milk. Rowan nurses on both sides, and still comes away hungry. Not to mention, the case of jaundice and dehydration that kept us in the hospital for two days last week. One good thing did come of that though. I met a wonderful lactation consultant. She was very kind and patient, and worked with me to get Rowan's latch correct, showed me some tricks with the pump, and encouraged me to keep going despite cracked purple nipples. Yesterday I went to a lactation support group, and was again met with kindness and patience. The consultant even helped me to obtain a hospital grade breast pump despite the fact that the WIC office I was using said (bitchily, I might add) that no one in the state had them.

I think this is what I want to do. I want to help people, I want to empower women to trust their bodies. I mean c'mon, I have the pain threshold of a four year old, and I was still able to have a natural childbirth (minus that icky experience with Fentanyl, but luckily that didn't last long). It was pretty funny yesterday, all the girls in the lactation group looked at me funny when I said that I didn't have an epidural, and that next time I was going completely drug free.

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