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I was reading the fabulous Jennifer Brandt's blog Perfectly Disheveled tonight and was reminded of something that I had buried deep within the recesses of my mind...BREAST FEEDING! Oh how it sucked! No pun intended. It was one of the most awful things I have experienced thus far in motherhood. I know its not PC to admit this but hey, that's how I roll. I am honest to a fault. I always thought that breastfeeding would be something beautiful and magical; a sacred bond between mother and baby. And it was...but it was also something else. It was what most Hollywood actresses look like without their hair and makeup done, no stylist standing by, no PR person to spin their words into weaved gold. It was raw, it was painful , it was ugly and , on most days, it hurt me..deeply. Worse than that, it was humbling and , at the get, made me feel like the world's biggest freaking loser Mommy! Amen. I'm divulging the truth that it was for me.
I remember coming home on that first day, driving 15 miles an hour with our blinkers on trying our best not to damage or mess up this most perfect being that we had just been given. We cooked this baby good and read all the books but when it came down to it, we couldn't believe these people were going to let us take the baby out of the hospital. After all, what the hell were they thinking? We didn't know what to do. We could barely keep one another alive,plants were dying all over the house, I'd lost a dog but these assholes wanted me to keep an entire human being alive! WHAT?? Panic set in. But there was no turning back. We were going to hold onto this halo/fog of new baby splendor as long as we possibly could. The key was to keep the baby in tact.
We get home.Hello baby! This is your new house. The whole world, in its entirety, will be forever changed. You will be the sun and we will rotate around you forevermore. Time for a nap. Gently we place the baby into the bassinet and then its time to turn off the lights, pull the room darkening shades and SLEEP. But wait. That won't work. If the lights are off we can't see if she's breathing. If we can't see that she's breathing..maybe she's not. No! Sorry this plan will not work. Abort mission. Abort mission! Turning off the lights won't do. Instead, we collapsed in exhaustion laying across the bed, with our heads half in the bassinet, with the ceiling fan light turned all the way on! Just about the time my brain and heart gave way and allowed my eyes to close,the baby woke up..starving.
To my teet I drew my baby.She suckled. She didn't latch very well. I knew that my milk hadn't come in yet, as the lactation nurse had already informed me of my ineptitude before I had even left the hospital. She, also, had set me up with a medieval contraption known as an SNS . Not familiar with this?Oh, aren't you the lucky girl? SNS stands for Supplemental Nursing System which is basically today's scarlet letter for you are a fucking loser who doesn't have the capability of feeding your own offspring. That's right, there are broads in the world feeding their boobie nectar to chihuahuas and I can't keep my own human alive. Fuck. It was the Chia pet all over again. I was panicked. I was popping Fenugreek like they were the last tic tacs in the world. Anyways, those were my choices...Fenugreek and SNS...until my milk dropped. What does that even mean?It's not like a gallon of formula is going to come spilling out of me. I pumped..barely a taste for my infant.So, I grudgingly hook myself up to the SNS. Picture, if you will, some sort of human type version of what is used on cows. Basically, it was a small container that you filled with formula, that hung around your neck. There was a very small tube attached to that which was then taped to the top of
