Tonight was rough. Joslyn has tried to find the breast for comfort, but tonight she really wanted it. She whined and cried and kept rooting her way down my chest. The binky wasn't doing it for her nor were my caresses, lullabies, or rocking. The milk let down, my shirt is wet, and I cried too.

I couldn't have breast fed her anyway. There could still be residual radioactive dye running though my body and going through the milk due to the MRI I had Thursday. Tomorrow I could officially feed her my milk because even though I haven't pumped for a week tomorrow, I'm still lactating. But I can't anyway because the hormones that facilitate lactation in my body could potentially feed the cancer in my right breast.
I had a natural drug free birth because I was determined to succeed in getting Joslyn to latch unlike my son. I gave up with his latch because my husband was out of work at the time. I had to go back to work as soon as I healed so I went back at 4 weeks with him, and my husband didn't want to have problems bottle feeding him. I pumped breast milk for him for 20 months for my son.

When Joslyn latched immediately after she entered this world, I was ecstatic. She was a pro. She was a grazer and she grazed so much. My nipples were cracked and bloody, and bacteria came through. My milk came in, and I came down with mastitis, an infection of the breast that causes a high fever and flu like symptoms. It didn't go away. My breast developed abscesses. I saw a breast surgeon, and he drained them with needles twice.

Then I went back a third time the first week in February because I felt a hard lump on the right side. I asked if it was an abscess, and he tried to drain it with a needle and syringe with no luck. He said, "Well there's no fluid coming out. It's probably just inflammation from your mastitis that will last for quite some time." He sent me home, and I had no worry in the world.

No follow up, no ultrasound, no biopsy until four months later when I called him because I still had the lump and thought it was a plugged duct because it seemed weird that I could still has inflammation so long after mastitis four months ago. Finally he stuck a needle in it again, and he still didn't get any fluid. He biopsied it, and it is cancer.

The one thing that is good about him being negligent is that I got to breast feed Joslyn for 4.5 months on the breast. I got to cosleep with her for 4.5 months and barely wake up though the night to feed her. We both slept through the night every night, and sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and stare at her. She's so peaceful when she sleeps. She rarely cried for me until now, and now I cry too.