5 Months of Ouchie Nipples

Sawyer's been here for 5 months now. It's amazing to see all the little changes that five short months can bring. He laughs, he rolls, he scoochies on his belly a teeny bit, he grabs toys, he's starting to sit on his own for very short periods of time, he drools A LOT, and he's still nursing like a champ. Well, if a champ were super distractible, pretty demanding and kinda picky about where he takes his meals, then yeah, he's a champ.

In the beginning I had fears that I wouldn't be able to nurse Sawyer for the long term. It hurt. A LOT. Between a bad latch, a sleepy jaundice baby, a tongue tie, nipple damage and then **vasospasms, I thought we'd be lucky to reach 6 months. We're only a month away from that.
About a month and a half ago, I noticed that I didn't flinch when Sawyer latched on. I noticed that I was no longer deep breathing for the first two minutes of nursing. I noticed that I didn't immediately curl up into myself and want to wrap my boobs in a heated blanket when we were done nursing. SUCCESS! Finally! He resolved his latch issues, which gave my poor nipples some time to heal, which, with time, calmed the vasospasms. When I realized that it didn't hurt anymore, I turned into the breastfeeding queen! I walked through the Calgary airport nursing, while pushing my stroller full of carry on crap AND corralling my spazzy 4 year old. WIN! I walked through most of the Vancouver Aquarium while nursing while pointing out interesting marine animals to my son and his cousins. I was confidant enough to really pull an old boob out whenever to feed my little meatball; at a party, at the mall, in a parking lot waiting to pick up Trent from preschool.
And then something happened. I'm not sure exactly what it was. Sawyer started to get up more at night again (I'm sure it was the 4 month wonder week); like every hour and a half, get up more at night again. He was fussy, he wasn't napping well because (as any mum knows) bad day sleep leads to bad night sleep which leads to bad day sleep which leads to you being screwed. Well with this sudden influx if night waking and wanting some comfort, I developed a painful blister. I soaked it with an Epsom salts wash, I applied heat, I nursed and pumped hoping to get rid of it. By the third day it was painful enough that I had to carefully pop it. A little relief. I nursed as normal and thought we should be good. WRONG. Welcome back vasospasm! With the nipple trauma comes the vasospasms. They are so painful and take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to heal. And this time, I think they are worse.
I am back to flinching every time he latches onto my left side. I am back to deep breathing to get through the initial minutes of nursing. And if that wasn't enough, now they are almost always painful. They are always spasming, starting about 10 minutes after I finish feeding him, lasting about 3-5 minutes, every half hour or so. Ouch ouch ouchhhhhie!
I know these will eventually heal, again, but in the meantime it's so discouraging. We had finally got to a point in our nursing relationship, that I didn't feel as tied down by the boobs anymore and really enjoyed our quiet little cuddles every few hours. Le sigh! Well let's all cross our fingers that these clear up soon so I can be a breastfeeding champ again.

**Vasospasm: is a sudden constriction/narrowing of a blood vessel (in the nipple) that is extremely painful. You can see a blanching of the nipple and sometimes, as blood flow resumes, the nipple will go from white to blue to red. Check out this great article on Vasospasms, at Kelly Mom.com