mamadrama: what the la leche people will never tell you

last night, after a hardcore session of double-boob breastfeeding, i was in the bathroom and leaned over to get a towel off the floor…and i heard the sound of balls smacking against ass. as in, the glamorous sounds of fucking. however, there was no fucking. it was just me and a wet towel and a lot of rubber ducks spread across the floor.

that was the distinctive sound of my empty tits flapping against my chest. yes, flapping. and i have heard this before – with my tits, my chest, of course.

now, patroushka is an avid breastfeeder. she can’t get enough of the shit. at nearly 18 months, she’d rather suck than eat, and early mornings she nurses so heavily that my nipples turn painfully red and dry. maybe i’m exaggerating a little, but not much. i consider myself to be a pretty hardcore breastfeeder; in fact, i’d even go so far as to call myself a boob-feeding martyr. i complain but yet i submit. because it makes life MUCH easier (ends temper tantrums, puts babe to sleep, creates unbelievable closeness and mutual trust with babe, etc.) and weening would be absolute hell, plus i can’t find a compassionate way to do it.

my point is…i breastfeed ALL THE FUCKING TIME. quite often. and no one ever warned me about this empty tit flapping, or the ways in which my boobs would no longer be like my boobs of old. i used to have pretty nice tits. not too big, not too small, a fairly convenient rack, one might say. but now my boobs are things that either contain milk or nothing at all. hence the flapping and the strange texture of skin. essentially, my boobs after a feeding are the equivalent of a person who has lost 300 pounds – lots of goddamn skin.

but i know, i know. everything will return to normal when this breastfeeding is done. well…except it won’t. this tit flapping situation will eventually cease, but not entirely. i will be a little droopy afterward. i may choose to lift and separate on special occassions. i will not have the same boobs as before. and this is the truth.

the thing is, i don’t actually care. i’m OK with it. i just need to be honest with myself, and i think the breastfeeding mafia needs to be honest about this as well. they’ll say your body will be the same afterward to deflect arguments against breastfeeding by the bottle-feeding mafia. they think mild boob mutilation will frighten prospective breastfeeders away. pussies!

the spiritual goal is to accept changes in the body, especially after becoming a mother. giving birth, as far as i’m concerned, is a rather gnarley process. fuck anyone who says otherwise, because they are arrogant liars. and especially, ESPECIALLY fuck anyone who says a mother needs plastic surgery to be beautiful again. my flappy tits are like 100 times more beautiful than they were before i became a mom. uhm, no, they’re not. but they have more wisdom. and soul. and skin!

here’s my cornball point: i am amused by my flappiness. and i’ll keep nursing little p until my tits reach my knees.

so there!

Tags: breastfeeding, motherhood, parenting