Someday, my breasts will no longer hurt.  Someday, my nipples will not be pink and raw.  Someday, I won’t pause, mid-whatever, and just wait for a wave of burning through the boob to pass.

To say I’m frustrated is an understatement.  I’m too stubborn to give up on breastfeeding, as I don’t feel that this pain is yet worthy of being a reason to not provide the quantitative and qualitative benefits of breastmilk.  But I can see the line where that’s no longer the case drifting in front of me at some unknown distance.  I don’t particularly want to go to pumping and feeding either, for both practical reasons (it’s incredibly inconvenient, and I don’t know how it would work logistically when I’m by myself as there are times that she won’t go to sleep or be on her own after eating or be asleep before eating), selfish reasons (it’s so convenient to just have a boob available if we go anywhere for more than an hour; pumping while out and about would be far, far less convenient), and for her (the skin to skin time is great, and she gets good comfort out of it).  But I either have to get used to the pain, or something.

For no particularly good reason other than “lots of things change then”, I’m hope, praying, that at three months, she’ll get better about using her mouth and things will improve.

I’m sure that this isn’t the only painful, long-term tradeoff I’ll be making as a mother.  I’m sure there are other difficulties (physical and emotional) that will make this seem like barely a speedbump on the way to raising a child, but I’m not feeling that at the moment.  I’m feeling uncertain as to what the future holds, and how I should handle it.  If I knew it would be better by three months, it’d be easier to hold on for another five weeks and wait it out.  I mean, pregnancy was nine months of discomfort, so what’s another three months?  But if I knew that it would be no better by three would I do anything different?  Would I stop now just because there wouldn’t be improvement then?  I don’t know!  I don’t think so, but it’s hard to make good decisions when you’re in the middle of confusing things.