It's good in bread

[Warning: Acceptable TMO-level breach ahead. Please exit while you still can.]

Did you know that yeast infection is very common in pregnancy? Well, it is, and I am apparently the living proof of it. If someone would have told me about this earlier, I would have drowned myself in active-culture yogurt or any damn preventive measure I could get my hands on. But no one told me.

I have a very strong love-hate relationship with yeast, minus the love part. Before now, my body and yeast got together three times. First time, it was an unpleasant surprise, but it went away without much struggle and I could finally say, “well, now I know what a yeast infection feels like. Mark that off my to-do list.”

Second time, it surfaced a day before we were leaving for a trip to attend our friends’ wedding. Recognizing the symptoms, I went to the pharmacy and picked up an OTC treatment. I woke up the next morning feeling like I was on fire. I was in enough pain to actually consider canceling the flight and skipping the wedding. I didn’t, but what I learned from the experience is that the OTC stuff does not get along with my privates.

And then there was a third time, when yeast arrived in the place I was not expecting—my breasts. And this particular encounter with yeast was worse than any pain I have ever experienced. Labor was a piece of cake compared to yeast—not only in the intensity of the pain, but also due to the fact that this pain engulfed me every two hours. For two months.

Those Lamaze breathing techniques that did nothing for me during labor finally came handy for pain management during breastfeeding. Child was a lazy eater, and he was tongue-tied (which means that his tongue did not come out as far as necessary to have a good latch). But after crying and biting my lip at every feeding session for an entire first month of his life because it felt like someone was jabbing needles in my nipples and down my breasts—not only at latch-on but throughout the whole feeding, I finally confessed to a friend that I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. And instead of telling me that “it will get better” if I gave it time or that I must just have a lower tolerance for pain, as my mom and the lactation consultant told me, she actually said, “I think you should call a doctor and ask if it could be yeast.” And so it was. It took three two-week rounds of high-dose Diflu.can to finally get rid of it.

So now, yeast comes into my life again. It has been a full week since I filled the prescription for treatment—and I am still not feeling quite right. To add to the stress, after taking the treatment, I read the medical pamphlet that came in the box and found out that this drug is pregnancy category C. What the frick? Do I not have enough to worry about with this pregnancy? I mean, I know the doctor who prescribed it was also the doctor who confirmed my pregnancy, in the same appointment, so she would not give me something that would be bad for the baby… But what if she had a major brain fart and just forgot? And more importantly, this treatment doesn’t even seem to be working! So what’s next? I have eaten so much yogurt that even the thought of it makes me sick. Thank goodness for Kefir.