the problem of demand and supply

last friday percy left me in a rather inenviable position. by the time i picked her up from child care i was a whole lot gladder to see her than she was to see me. this is why...

breasts are remarkable things- for practical purposes, thank you very much all you leering men! they make milk for babies to suck out day after day after day. when a baby sucks all the milk out the breast just goes ahead and makes more. jan informed me months ago that a breast can refill in twenty minutes!
until she started eating solid food percy was a great sucker. she latched on within hours of being born and never looked back. unlike the awful stories i had heard about bad attachment, cracked and bleeding nipples, mastitis etc, i was fortunate that i breezed thru breastfeeding, apart from one bout of blocked ducts during my stay in den bosch with rob and phil. even that cleared up in under a day.

since eating solid foods percy has become far less predictable with how much and when she wants milk. we also reintroduced a bottle (initially mostly containing formula and now only ever formula because i hate expressing and i've packed the expressing machine and the sterilser away) for her at around eight months in anticipation of me going back to work and her not having a handy milk boob around. she is offered milk upon waking in the morning, after each of her naps and as a last thing at nite before going to bed. the day time milk feeds when at home could be either bottle or breast. the 'good morning' and 'good nite' feeds are always breast.

last friday morning percy drained my left breast but took only two or three 'sucks' from my right before she decided that was enough. no encouragement would get her to take more. "hmmmm..." i thought "this might get interesting..." and it did. you see, unfortunately those couple of little sucks stimulated the breast to make more milk but the previous lot hadn't been sucked out. so i essentially ended up with two lots of milk where only one fits! this isn't a big deal when i'm with percy because at the next feed i just make sure she starts with the double lot breast and it's all hunky dory. when i'm at work tho the next feed is twelve hours away. over the course of the day my breast got tighter and tighter and more and more engorged. i've experienced this plenty before, particularly in the early weeks when percy and my boobs were still deciding on their working relationship. but there was no relief in sight last friday! it nearly got to the point of me rushing out into the street and acosting any baby i saw to help me out. as it was i ended up in a cubicle in the toilets at work at 2pm, with my top off, hand expressing into a wad of toilet paper. yippee- what a dignified and delightful life i lead.
i've hand expressed once before- it sucks; no pun intended.

for those of you who don't get the significance of this let me elucidate...
engorged breasts are super sensitive and super painful, even brushing your own arm gently over your breast while undertaking the lightest of tasks hurts. engorged breasts can lead to blocked ducts, mastitis, infection, hospitalisation and complete bed rest for days if not weeks.

i was feeling nauseous and headachey by the time i got to percy around 4:30pm. she was happy to undo my predicament. ahhhhh....

i really hope she continues with full feeds every morning because i don't want to go thru that sort of a day again. the necessity of having a breast pump, sterliser and all other accoutrements at work is just too depressing to contemplate.

hence the problem of demand and supply.