The Nursing Olympics

RATED F FOR FEMALE AUDIENCES (AND DR. BROMER, who probably would have read it anyway because he is very curious)

So sometimes you find yourself doing things you never imagined to resolve problems you never would have thought existed in the world. Today's was a clogged milk duct. I've had this problem about three times so far, and it totally makes sense that it would happen, and how/why, but it's a mechanical thing I'd never have anticipated.

And the solution is similarly mechanical. A desperate Internet search the first time identified three possible strategies. The first was application of a heating pad, which basically did nothing for me. The second and third worked, but only in combination: a scalding hot shower and nursing the baby. But not just nursing any old way--nursing with the baby's chin pointed toward the clogged duct, which can be identified because it feels like a very painful lump.

Naturally, this clogged duct was in such a place that pointing Allison Clare's chin toward it required some bizarre, Twister-like interactions between her and me. I had to lay her on the bed and sort of clamber over her, ending up with my face up close and personal with the front of her diaper and suspending myself there, very still, like in some yoga class gone horribly wrong. She has this hilarious habit of raising one eyebrow, and she must have been thinking, "Oh, now this is interesting . . ."