Breasts are a crazy thing and breastfeeding, as normal as they say it is, can be equally crazy (at least, in the beginning). Just the realization that our breasts have the ability to PRODUCE MILK, is mind blowing when we stop to think about it!
As a Doula, I have wrapped my hands around many a breast!
I have stimulated the nipples of women to help kick start uterine contractions.
I have stimulated nipples to augment labor and to help slow bleeding post delivery.
I have hand-expressed colostrum to entice a newborn to latch and I have initiated sprays of milk out of the breasts of my clients in evidence and validation that they ARE providing nourishment to their children.
So why are we so weird about our breasts? OK, maybe the question should be, why am I so weird about MY breasts and maybe, just maybe, there are one or two other women who can identify with me.
I always have been weird about them. I just never liked them. I have gained and lost weight enough times that the integrity of my breast tissue seems to have melted…. or so it seems to me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not shy or modest or anything like that. I mean if I liked them, I would flaunt them. You might even see me on the back of a Harley Davidson, topless at some bike rally in South Dakota or something. I simply don’t like them.
However, these bad boys have served me (and my husband and children) well! I know the feel of a good push up bra and a slinky dress. I know the look of lust in my husband’s eye when he sizes them up and I know the pure joy of a 2am breastfeeding session with my newborn while the rest of the world sleeps.
But… I struggled. More than some and less than others.
My breasts were (and are) on the big side. In fact, each time I had a baby, my boobs were bigger than the heads of my babies. I felt awkward, it didn’t seem “normal” to me AND I didn’t want anyone except Jerry Patterson to see me do it. Not the nurses, not my friends, not my mom or mother-in-law. Just Jerry Patterson!
There seems to be a big movement, at least in MY facebook newsfeed to “normalize” breastfeeding by doing it in public. You know what I mean, right? Like, let’s all meet at this place and a certain time and breastfeed there together in public. Let’s show the world that breastfeeding is “normal” by cramming it down their throats!
And that’s fine… FOR SOME!
For others, like me, breastfeeding non-publicly is more “normal”. In fact, if breastfeeding is capable of playing a role in bonding, and I am certain that it can (and did, in my case), then all the more validation that I don’t want to share it publicly, with passers by.
As I became a more confident breastfeeder, I got more comfortable doing it in places other than my home. I always brought a blanket to cover myself with. The blanket was for me and my baby.
NOT to protect the world from breastfeeding, but to comfort ME.
My children and my decisions about how I raise and comfort them have NEVER been about anyone else. They have always been about us as a family.
The sooner we let go of what others think about who we are, what we are, what we do, how we nurture, what we wear, what we look like, where we live, blah, blah, blah… the better off we’ll be!
Go raise your babies, ladies! The way it feels right for YOU!
Authored by: Randy Patterson