There are many things about motherhood veteran moms try to warn you about before you become a mother for the first time. "Get sleep before the baby comes!" "Sleep when the baby sleeps!" "Prepare to die during childbirth!" I mean, really, the list goes on and on, and it's a wonder any woman ever decides to get pregnant and have a kid at all.
But we do. And we inevitably find out for ourselves what they so desperately tried to tell us - times a million. One of things I was sure I wanted to do once I found out I was pregnant was breastfeed. I had heard the stories about how my boobs would swell into horrifyingly huge, hard, round aliens with minds of their own - tethered to my chest, I heard about the circles of doom that would appear without warning on my shirt by simply thinking about my baby - or even hearing another baby cry. I heard about the cracked, bloody nipples and the searing pain of trying to get a baby to latch on. Oh yes, the veterans made sure I heard it all. Yet, being the stubborn, "let me see for myself" kind of person I am, I still wanted to do it.
And I did. After S was born, I faced many of the things I had been warned about while learning the ropes of nursing a newborn. That coupled with sleep deprivation brought to me courtesy of HELL and the hair that fell out in clumps until I was certain I needed to order a wig STAT and the jello-y mess that had been left of my once taut stomach... well, the mixed bag of torture was not so surprising thanks to the countless warnings - though let me just say that the level of crazy is one that can never be properly explained. Nope. You simply cannot understand it until it happens to you.
One of the things the veterans forgot to mention when it comes to breastfeeding was the "holy crap, where'd that come from?" effect. After a while, the boobs work out a rather intricate, miraculous schedule around demand, and once this schedule is set, you are "booby" trapped into trusting it. Ha. Ha. HA HA HA. Picture this: There you are, in bed with your husband, getting all snuggly and, uh, intimate, which - after the miracle of childbirth - we all know is another miracle to behold, when suddenly? Your morph from MILF to MILK. That's right - you become Bessie in da Bed.
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| Oops! Did I do that? |
Fortunately, though my dignity had flown out the window, my sense of humor remained intact. As did M's. Because as the baby shrieks in the background and milk drips down your chest onto your husband's face, what can you do but laugh?
Not too long after that first dairy debacle, I shuffled into our bedroom one night after putting S down in her crib. M was waiting for me in bed with a big grin on his face. In his hands? A big box of cookies.
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| Can I join the party? |
