Helen Woodman wrote:
>I can vividly
>remember the sight, not large breasts but boy were they engorged, looked like
>two pudding bowls stuck to her front, tight as a drum and her breast tissue
>was so markedly demarkated.  Poor girl, she could not hold her arms
>comfortably down her side because of the oedema running up into her armpits.

Forgive my obvious greeness, but... you mean this isn't normal?!  I had
this with my first son, and I was doing everything 'right' unrestricted
nursing and all that... I always just figured moms who didn't have it were
lucky.  Now I know why no one gets it when I say I am planning on renting a
pump to be ready and waiting for me when I get home from my next birth...

In fact, the stretch marks on my breasts are from that primary engorgement
period.  They looked totally normal on day 1,2,3.... and day 3 was a
friday... and the medical supply store was closed on the weekend... and the
hand pump wouldn't work.  Ice never even occured to me (God that would have
felt good thinking back... a nice cold ice pack wrapped in cotton).  I took
a shower and while a few drops flowed it made me ache more in the end
because guess what... I swelled... They were so swollen the idea of them
popping was completely plausible to me.  I was seriously afraid my skin
would tear, and spent as much time as possible trying to hand express
(which just killed) I was so engorged that my nipples (normally the
farthest thing imaginable from inverted) were absolutely flat.  Only
distinguishable by color.

Monday morning came (after sobbing from pain all weekend) and I left my 5
day old with my husband to stand in front of the supply store as it was
being opened.  The clerk gave a full demo of the hospital pump which I
wanted to just nod through and say "I can figure it out myself" and race
home, but I luckily watched the whole thing fearful I'd get it home and
still be dying.  I got home and barely nodded towards my husband and son,
hooked it up, and sobbed from pain and pain relief combo as I pumped (I
swear) 18 ounces (9 each side).  the little bottles filled up, and were
overflowing (I was blissed out with my eyes shut) so I took them off and
put them back on to get the rest out.

I went to look in the mirror and my breasts looked destroyed, like someone
had beaten them.  Massive gaping stretch marks.  But they didn't look near
as frightening and scary as they did when I was so severely engorged.

Now I know why when I called for help all that time no one 'got it' when I
said I was engorged!  they kept telling me to 'keep trying to latch him on'
and of course when they asked 'do you have flat or inverted nipples?' I
said no, not at all, but I'm engorged!

(For those wondering, yes my son had a latching problem [tongue tie] and we
were syringe feeding him to appease his appetite while he did nothing other
than flutter suck on me at the time.)

-wendey, studying LC in Montreal