I just gotta state for the record that I’ve got TERRIFIC boobs. I didn’t say terrific-looking boobs so you can stop staring, thank you very much. They’re terrifically productive, and they’ve come a long way from the days of being nice-but-completely-useless. Not only have they matched the demand of my milk drinking machine, they have stepped up and far exceeded expectations by producing way more than needed. I’m up to 8 bottles of extras so I can go out galavanting for a whole day without worrying that she will starve to death.
I have waited for this day for so long that all I could do this morning was to open my fridge door and admire the milk bottles all lined up neatly in a row.
Now that I’ve officially joined the league of milkmaids all around the world and I can heave a sigh of relief because it means I’m not a bad mother, I’ve gotta say that society these days are not kind to breasts. I mean, you don’t see any other body parts coming under such intense scrutiny, like “Oh, your little pinky can’t fit into your ear canal? That’s terrible and you’re now less of a human being.” Or “OMG your nose isn’t producing enough mucus? Maybe you should get a nose job.”
The moment i got preggers, it seemed the whole world was interested in my boobs. I had lactation consultants manhandling them and complete strangers asking if you was successful at breastfeeding. Even the old lady who lives next door had a detailed and mildly inappropriate conversation about them when she walked past and saw me expressing milk. Ok see, where I grew up, my breasts are no one else’s business but mine and NOBODY talks about them, much less touch them.
While I was stuck at the hospital for 27 hours, I was bombarded with tacky posters of how BREASTFEEDING IS THE ONLY WAY and the evil formula was going to make my baby self-destruct. Except that I already have a baby who survived on formula milk and he seems to be doing fine (fine being relative because he likes to eat dirt a lot, which might not be the case had I given him breast milk). But even then, I felt terribly guilty all the time for not being able to breastfeed him, like I was shortchanging him or something.
And the husband will tell you that I went through a completely irrational phase of blaming *everything* on formula. He catches a cold, it’s because of formula. Can’t sleep, formula. Can’t eat, also formula. For a while, I was beating myself up everyday for not feeding him the all-powerful breast milk.
It used to really get to me, especially when folks who found out I didn’t breastfeed him gave this sympathetic-but-it’s-all-your-fault look and proceeded to berate me on the benefits of breast milk. It took every ounce of my self control and then some to not stab them and feed them their own guts. I KNOW BREAST IS BEST (the person who came up with that cheesy line should be beheaded by the Dear Leader himself), but there was a time when they were broken and refused to work.
So you can understand why I’m so proud of the fact that they’re fixed and no longer spoilt. And why I’ve got to shout it from the rooftops, so everyone will stop asking me if I’m breastfeeding, and going on and on about why it’s the elixir of life.
PS. I know I said breast/boobs 12 times in this post and if you’re conservative about that sort of thing, BREAST BREAST BREAST BREAST BREAST. For good measure.
