Crying over spilled milk

Mastitis sounds like a dinosaur. I can picture it in a history book, "when the mastitis roamed the earth, it attacked women and their boobies, making them boobies crack and become hard to the touch. The attacked would then have aches and pains like the flu, then chils, then dizziness, then fever, then misery."

Of course I never conjured I had mastitis, even with all the symptoms because, like with everything else, I always assume that it will never happen to me since this or that only happens to weird people. At this rate I will see an UFO soon.

How does mastitis feel like? Like you have the worst liquor hang over, after being beaten up on the joints with a stick, while having your soul sucked out through your nipples. You get extra points of martyrdom if you have a fussy baby.

I am pumping my breasts one evening when I realize I am pumping pure blood. I call my husband, yelling out the bathroom door to come take a look at my breasts. Surprised by the request he trotted happily to have a boob looksie, only to have his smile die as he exclaimed, terrified, "Oh my God!"

Poor guy is not only traumatized by having watched my csection, but now he also gets to watch as chunks of my breasts come off in blisters and scabs.

Let me tell you something about pumping: it's not fun. It's a machine, a gadget. It has no feelings and is not cute and warm like a baby. The female body... Well, the female body doesn't react well to that. It knows that the machine is not a baby and will stall the milk supply. This is why lactation consultants have you carry a picture of the baby or his clothes to smell while pumping. Sometimes, when my supply is low, I hear the baby cry upstairs and the flow starts as if on cue.

Why do I pump? Because of his brief visit to NICU, baby fell in love with bottles and decided that getting anywhere near my Dolly Parton sized breasts was a horrible, horrible idea, a reaction I never quite got from a male before and it really hurt my feelings.

A few nights ago I was having one of those sleepy, low supply sessions, when I noticed my hips hurt deep enough that I couldn't remain standing while I started to have chills. The pain of pumping was so excruciating that I felt feverish and wanted to throw up.

Waterboarding's got nothing on pumping with mastitis. The government should try it out on terrorist suspects.

After thirty minutes of this I shook so much that the bottles of fresh milk, the milk that wasn't stained with blood, flew off my shaken hands and splashed all over the kitchen counter, and I've discovered that that's how one truly cries over spilled milk.