The Great Virtual Breast Fest

Breastfeeding my children is at the top of my list of the most beautiful, amazing, miraculous experiences of my life. Despite being a young mother, I knew from the moment I saw the positive pregnancy test that I would breastfeed. Always a voracious reader, I had already devoured every pregnancy and parenting book I could get my hands on and was determined to give my child all of the health benefits that breastfeeding could provide. Not to mention the fact that I was determined to return to my pre-pregnancy size PDQ and breastfeeding moms lose baby weight easier than non-breastfeeding moms. Or so they say.

My first attempts at breastfeeding were clumsy and awkward. My oldest son didn’t just instinctively latch on. No matter how I positioned him, it seemed impossible for him to nurse. My mother-in-law saw my frustration grow and gave me the benefit of her experience by reaching over and cupping my breast in her hand and guiding my son’s mouth to it at the same time. It was magic. I never had trouble with him latching on again after that.

That experience, embarrassing as it could have been — I mean, it’s not every day I let a family member cup my breast in their hand– brought home to me the beauty of motherhood and power of womanhood. I realized that no pregnancy book or parenting book or lactation book could bestow upon me the wisdom that comes with experience or the instinct that’s been built into mothers by God. I felt connected to all of the women who’d felt the pins and needles, tingly sensation of milk letting down as their babies softly rooted against their breast. I felt connected to all mothers past, present and future.

My oldest son weaned himself from the breast at ten months and it was a sad day for me. I would have nursed him longer than that. It was our time. I rarely multi-tasked or watched TV while breastfeeding. Instead, I preferred to look down at his tiny face. I loved it when he was wide awake and his big, blue eyes blinked up at me and his little hands clutched at my breast or, later, gently tugged at my long hair. I loved it when he nursed himself to sleep and I got to see his face in repose, his silky eyelashes fanned against his baby cheeks, his forehead smooth. That his baby’s instinct kept him sucking at my breast even when he was deeply asleep seemed a wonder to me.

I was magical. I was a giver of life. I didn’t have to do anything but eat reasonably healthfully. My body knew what to do. I could hear my baby sigh in his sleep and my milk would let down. My mother’s body instinctively pushed my baby’s nourishment to the top of its priority list. To try to ignore it would be to experience achy, heavy breasts and milk-soaked blouses. Even if I hadn’t already been willing to step up to the plate and put my child’s needs before my own, my body would have done it anyway.

I don’t understand why anyone would sexualize breastfeeding or demonize women who breastfeed in public. I had a lightweight little nursing cape that snapped around my neck and covered my breast and my son’s head when he nursed in public but there were times when I forgot to pack it in the diaper bag and it certainly didn’t stop me from feeding my child–no matter where we were. I was always discrete. I got a few uncomfortable glances–mostly from men– but never faced any overt hostility.

I guess I was just lucky because it would seem that many other mothers have been and are still currently being harassed and persecuted for exercising their legal right to breastfeed their child in public. Facebook has banned photos of children at their mothers’ breasts. Bill Maher has stepped in doo-doo (he has no idea how deep) by condemning those who would dare to feed their child from nature’s oldest bottle, the BREAST, in public. Read more about it here.

To anyone who is immature enough to make it all about boobs and sex, I say, Grow Up. To anyone who is uncomfortable seeing a woman’s breast (or the little bit of flesh not obscured by a feeding child’s head), I say, Get Counseling; You Probably Suckled At Your Mother’s Breast Too.

Mostly, to anyone who has a problem with breastfeeding in any way, shape or form: Pffffffffffffffffffffffffttttt! Get a Life.

And SUCK THIS!