Ok.

This blog needs a warning.

Like a serious warning.

Do NOT continue reading if you are a boy. Or grossed out easily. Or afraid of the human anatomy. Or not a mother. Or not a nursing mother. Or just somebody that only normal things happen to.

I'm not kidding.

Stop reading right now.

This isn't like one of those warnings to peak your interest or get you to go on hoping for an interesting story. Oh. No. This is a serious warning meant to protect you from emotional and/or spiritual scarring.

Please, believe me. I have your best interest at heart and if you know what's good for you, you will stop reading this blog right..... Now. Because I am totally, totally NOT liable for the years of therapy you are going to need at the end of this blog.

Especially if you haven't had kids yet. Because I might be the reason you never ever ever ever have htem.

Especially if you are a boy. Because I might be the reason you change teams and never want to see another girl naked again.

I wouldn't lie to you about this. Do not read another word.

Ok, do you think that worked for anyone, those of you who are still reading?

Those of you who are hopefully just the nursing mothers left in the crowd.

Because I am about to retell the most dramatic, the most bizarre, the most disgusting, the most, well basically.... weird Nursing Story you have ever heard.

I promise you that.

And I am about to start throwing around words like Breast. And Nipple. And Bleeding. And Milk Duct. And Boob. And if you can't handle it, it's best to walk away now.

Something happened to me yesterday.

Something.... awful. But mostly weird.

And because it happened to me and I had no one to share it with yesterday besides my husband, my mom and a medical professional, I feel the need to write about it.

And hopefully the only two people left to read all about it are Lindsay and Kimbra.

They at least know kind of what I'm going through.

Only. This instance, might be unique in ALL of history.

Not even kidding.

So. On with the crazy ass story.

As you probably know I'm a nursing mother. I have nursed all of my children for a year and by the third one I feel like I'm a bit of a pro.

I have the answers to all the questions. I have the system down at the beginning so I know what to expect and how to NOT bleed and get through the uncomfortableness.

I am one of those total Breast is Best Wacko-s.

Like my kids don't even eat any kind of food until nine months old.

That is serious commitment people.

Ask Stryker.

And I am bound and determined to keep it that way.

After Stella was born, all ten pounds three ounces glory of her, I had all kinds of issues with nursing. Like stuff, medical proffessionals had never seen before.

Stella basically, (This is about to get gross), sucked off like half of each of my nipples.

Things got bad.

And I have the battle scars to prove it.

Like seriously, half of my silver dollar sized nipples (Am I right nursing mothers...????) are scarred.

And ugly.

I eventually had to give up actually nursing the child and just pump to protect myself. So even when Stella, the perfect baby, started sleeping through the night at three weeks old, I still had to get up all night long and pump because I was terrified of losing my milk supply.

That went on for six weeks. Six weeks I pumped and six weeks I had the scariest nipples known to mankind.

They were FrankenNipples.

Or Nipples of the Living Dead.

Oh, it was awful.

Like Open Wound kind of awful.

I warned you didn't I? I told you it was going to get bad.

And the worst part is, I am just getting warmed up....

Ok, anyways, after six weeks I got the awesomness that is Mastitis. That is a breast infection that feels like.... DEATH.

I thought I was dying.

Not only do you get all of the symptoms of the flu, you pretty much want to die and go to heaven and never, ever, ever see boobs again.

It's awful.

But the good thing about all of that and getting mastitis was that FINALLY the doctor gave me antibiotics.

I had been asking for them for a while, but no one would actually see me because they were like, "All nursing mothers crack and bleed."

And I was like, Not like this they don't.

Trust me.

So finally when they saw the Mastitis, they got the pleasure therapy-inducing view of what was left of the nipples.

Anyways the antibiotics cleared everything up, the mastitis AND the nipple issues and after that I could breast feed and never had another problem.

Not even with Scarlett.

Not even with Stryker at the beginning.

Not even until....

This last week.

So, when I was on vacation without the kidlets I pumped the whole time I was gone.

I had to, obviously, to keep up my milk supply and save myself from the cold turkey clogged milk ducts that hurt like a biotch.

Everything went fine, the one thing I was worried about was Mastitis because when you pump it doesn't drain exactly like a baby eating from Breast and the risk for infection is higher.

Although some women pump the entire time without any problems.

I'm just not one of those women.

So. I got back home, I was a little nervous Stryker wouldn't latch back right away, but he did and everthing was just like it had been.

Plus he's almost six months so I should be well beyond any issues with the child.

About five or six days ago, I fell asleep with him nursing in the middle of the night and he got a funny latch on and gave me a sore spot. Like it was rough. And then I kept nursing on it, telling myself I was tougher than that and then... It cracked and started bleeding a little bit.

Just a tiny bit.

Like over one duct.

I was uncomfortable and it was painful but more than that I was frustrated that I was having to do all of this stuff over again. It was irritating.

So. Then. The last three days have been hell! Something changed and it wasn't just like the outside of my boob that hurt, it felt like there was a tiny man inside of my boob stabbing it constantly. Over and over and over with a burning hot jagged knife.

It was awful.

It sounds awful, huh?

And I feared mastitis, but the breast was never getting hard. Like it was normal and Stryker could eat off of it and all that.

So I started using Lanolin. Which is a miracle drug. Like seriously, I'm pretty sure God Himself handed it over to Eve after she gave birth. He was like, You're going to need this dear, just trust me. It's called the consequence to your sin, but I'm not unreasonable.

Ugh, could you imagine being Eve? This is a side track PS. I think about it sometimes, well especially when I gave birth to Stella because that was the only thing that got me through. I was so over labor. Everything was painful and I was miserable and terrified and I looked at Zach in the middle of it all and said, I don't want to do this anymore, I want to go home.

He laughed nervously and said something like, It's a little late for that now.

Which he was totally rational and right. I was panicked and ready to give up. But I just kept telling myself billions of women have done this before me. Millions of women are probably doing this right now with me. It's been done before and I can make it through.

Eve didn't have those assurances. And can you imagine how terrifying that would have been???? Plus, then she has to nurse twins? And feeding one hurts!

So, yes, I'm pretty sure God was like, Um, how about this sheep? We can make something out of him and Voila, on the six day, nine months after Adam knocked her up, God created Lanolin.

That story is in the Bible by the way, you just have to read the original Hebrew....

So.

Anyways.

Yesterday morning I am convinced that My Boobs are officially punishing me. They're like, "Hello, we are the only thing you've got going for you and you are destroying us with all of these children!!! So. We're going to teach you a lesson."

And that they did my friends.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and gave Stryker his breakfast and then when I was eating mine, I notice that he was drooling red. Like there was drool mixed in with blood. And I freaked out.

I checked him all over, inside of the mouth and outside and then I looked at my boob and noticed the small crack. It was bleeding.

Ok... It must have been from that.

The one thing they say over and over and over and over is that when you have cracked or bled you don't need to worry about the baby. The baby is fine and the blood doesn't hurt him.

So I'm like, ok, but pretty sure drooling blood is SO not normal.

By the way, this story is about to take a turn for the WAY WORSE, so if you are getting squimish don't be embarressed to bail out now.

Noone is going to judge you.

I promise.

So. Next feeding. And the scab that was there was like gone. But Stryker was eating and he coughs a little on the milk, nothing he hasn't done before, but he coughs out blood.

Bright Red Blood.

And I freak.

Again.

I look down and there is blood all over my boob, and his mouth and his tongue were bright red and he is just looking up at me smiling and laughing and giggling and I'm like feeding my son BLOOD.

So. I set him down.

Grab the pump and get to work.

Hoping that blood just starts shooting out of that sucker so I know something is wrong for sure and where the source of the blood is coming from.

But I get nothing.

NOTHING.

Only a few drops of solid white milk. But to myself I'm thinking, At least it's ALL WHITE.

Of course I finish nursing Stryker on the other side just to make sure we don't go through that again.

After he's done eating and I am officially totally freaked out, I get on the phone trying to track down a Lactation Consultant, hoping they will be able to tell me what the hell is going on.

No answer.

Ugh.

Back to my own John Hopkins Specialist, aka Google.

Everything says the same thing, blood will not hurt the baby, always start with the infected side first, yada yada yada.

And I'm like, Ok, but do you really mean, this kind of blood?????? But Google leads me nowhere. Bing is even worse. The Lactation Consultant has yet to call me back and I'm all like, has this NEVER happened before????

It gets worse.

The next feeding.

I am all, ok, the internet says it won't hurt my baby, I'll just go ahead and start on that side, I don't have to keep him there long. Right?

Oh and through all of this my pain level is getting worse and there is a vein on the aereola that has gotten pretty swollen and is very very painful.

So this feeding, isn't really a feeding, but I'm trying to put him to sleep.

So the whole thing starts off good, once I've got the Lanolin on and Stryker falls asleep really quickly.

Too quickly for me to switch sides.

I relaxe a little noticing there is no blood around his mouth and pull him off ready to lay him down.....

..........
............
..............
................

That's when blood goes EVERYWHERE. You know if you are a nursing mom and the baby falls asleep, sometimse when you pull the baby away, their mouth is full of milk that they hadn't swallowed. That is exactly what happened with Styrker only it was blood.

And that is not the worst part.

Out of his mouth.... Falls.... This dime-sized.... Rubbery.... Bloody.... MASS.

Like A BLOOD CLOT.

Out of his mouth.

That he had somehow sucked OUT OF MY BREAST.

It was the size of a dime.

And SO SO SO SO SO SO gross.

And I start freaking out. Like screaming, trying to clean up the blood that is everywhere whilst trying to CATCH the blood clot bouncing back and forth between Stryker and Me without touching the slimy little bastard.

Oh it was awful.

And so then the girls rush in and they are screaming then and I am screaming then and Stryker is just laughing with blood all over his mouth and my arms are covered in it and so are my boobs and I am pretty sure I just turned my son into a Vampire while losing a CLOT OF BLOOD.

I eventually did catch the damn thing and then of course played with it, pressing on it, pushing it, trying to cut it in two. Oh it was so bizarre. And then of course sent pictures to my mom and Zach.

Because do you know how small one of the holes for milk to come out is is???? Its like tiny. And should NOT be able to birth a DIME-SIZED mass of God only knows what.

But it did.

Oh, it's so weird. And so awful. And I can't say that I believe that has EVER happened before in ALL of humanity because I googled it.

And guess what.

Nothing.

Oh it was insane.

But then my vein wasn't swollen anymore and I felt A TON better. I was like oh, hallelujah, I'm healed.

Well, I wasn't healed.

Like at all. And last night was a whole world of pain that I had never known existed and ended with a vicadin that is SO not my style.

But this morning I feel much, much, much better.

And there is no more bleeding!! Like there hasn't been any bleeding since the blood clot.

Poor Zach! I sent him a text message that said, "OK, the Grossest thing of my entire life just happened to me."

And he was all, "What?" And I could just tell he was SO not taking me seriously. Plus, that probably wasn't the first time I had used that phrase and more than likely it had been after I killed an ant or something.

But then I explained a MASS had just been sucked out of my nipple and he responds, WTF.

I couldn't help but die laughing. And feel validated.

Oh and then I sent him a picture.

And he was all, WTF!!! Again!!

And I'm all, I KNOW.

And then I called my mom and the more we talked, the more it sounded like a blood clot and I started to worry about ther blood clots floating around inside of me trying to find my heart and/or brain.

And then I called my health care professional and she was like, I have NO idea what is wrong with you, I've never heard of that before in my life, you need to call a lactation consultant.

And I was like. I did.

And then I called my mother in law, who was like oh, my old Gynacologist had a girl who bled out of her nipples during a breast exam.

And then if you Google bleeding nipples you get Breast Cancer Symptoms.

And Zach of course has already jumped to Breast Cancer because basically he's just waiting for me to come home with some kind of cancer. He pretty much has a countdown clock, realizing it is inevitable.

And even I had to go down that road. Like, Holy Crap, I think I just gave myself surgery and removed the cancerous tumor. But at least I don't have to do radiation....

Until, I went back to the beginning.

I don't have cancer.

I had a clogged milk duct thanks to the cracking and bleeding and that was the pain inside the boob and instead of a blood clot, what came out was the backed up, hardened milk.

Although, I still have no idea how it fit through the hole.

It's just bizarre.

Zach says he's glad I'm a doctor and can self diagnose myself.

I said, I am too.

He said he was being sarcastic.

But. Whatev.

I feel like I've officially been through it all and should now offer my services as a free clinic.

I'm just glad the bubbies are feeling better and no more blood.

Poor Stryker.

Oh and my PA says to me, they don't mean that babies should be able to Spit Up blood. They just mean a tiny bit.

And I would completely agree with that!!!! Google obviously needs to update their info.

I have a picture.

But I can't post it.

It's way, way, way too gross. And if you haven't vomitted by now, you would after you say the picture.

Promise.