Milk Duds

Breastfeeding is supposed to be a joyful bonding time for mom and baby but that's only what you see in Johnson and Johnson commercials. The reality is that it can be a painful and frustrating experience that leaves you wanting to find any excuse to get out of the house where no one will touch you for at least an hour.

I used to love having my boobs get lots of attention. Now I wish I could hang an out of order sign on them or a Do Not Disturb sign. "No moleste!" Every three hours, though, they are in high demand, a commodity greater than petroleum. As a potential "Milk Goddess," or one who produces enough milk to feed a community, my breast milk actually goes for $4.15 an ounce. I know this because the nurse at the hospital told me I was likely going to be a Milk Goddess because my milk came in fast and furious, so if I wanted to donate it to a community milk bank, I could.

Well that was before stress and ailments caused me to be occasionally pumping dry wells. It has not always been a bountiful oasis. From time to time, I have seen drought. Historically my left boob produces only about an ounce and a half at any given time by the pump. But it is also the one that suffers the most pain. Currently it feels like my daughter has the tongue of a cat, rubbing my nipple repeatedly with a sandpaper-like sensation. Most of the time my left boob has had a tough day.

The right does a little better and so we tend to favor it. At any rate, when I am wearing the cape of the Milk Goddess and having a productive day, I still struggle to get her to finish a feeding. She chronically falls asleep with my boob in her mouth, about half way through the process. It's as if my milk is cut with some sort of sedative. Because of this, I sit through a feeding in an uncomfortable position for at least a half an hour, poking my baby like some kind of playground bully.

Breastfeeding is messy, too. When I wake in the morning I find that my breast pads are saturated, my nightgown is drenched and there are large wet spots on the bed where I was laying. Every time I unleash my boobs from my straight jacket maternity bras, they drip and leak all over me. I have to wear a bra to bed every night, which is not too comfortable, and I have to pump regularly in order to avoid engorgement. Engorgement is painful. Your boobs are tender and sore and the slightest brush against them causes you to cringe.

Everyone in the house seems to be enjoying my product but me. The other night, I was watching the movie "Interview with a Vampire" and feeding the baby. It was then that I made a connection. When she is hungry, she viciously attacks my breast, snarling and snorting and then sucking loudly as if it is the last boob on earth. She is for all intents and purposes a vampire, an insatiable little milk sucker. But she is not the only one who has a taste for what I got cookin'. Maggie has taken to eating my saturated breast pads. I can't keep her away from them. If I throw them in the trash, she digs them out. If I leave them on the arm of the couch for just a second, she's up there feasting on them. One night I opened the room to the nursery, only to find that she had gotten herself locked in there by accident but entertained herself by feeding on the used pads I'd left on the bed during a 4am feeding.

Chris is obsessed with my huge boobs, too, needless to say. That really needs no further explanation. When I first became engorged he took one look at me and began to blush and couldn't stop giggling. He was like a 14 year old all over again. Now I occasionally catch him sneaking a peak when I'm pumping. He's curious for some strange reason and apparently wants to know what it looks like when a nipple gets sucked into a tube and milk comes shooting out of it.

The occasions when we get through a feeding seemlessly with enough milk, regular burps, minimal spit up, no puking afterwards and remaining fully conscious the whole time, are rare. At $4.15 an ounce, I should be keeping track of how much ends up in a burp cloth and then deducting it from her future allowance. Hell, at $4.15 an ounce, I ought to just stop buying dog food and let the dogs have at it. But in the end, it's a labor of love. The payoff is a healthy baby, and apparently a healthy dog, and after all I've been through recently, I should be happy I can breastfeed at all. Who cares if my boobs look like week-old party balloons or my nipples look like hot dogs hanging out of a grocery bag. I'm a Milk Goddess and this is probably the only time in my life when I will have any kind of divine status. Even if the status means you actually have no power and no control and that you are in reality a servant. The way I see it, breastfeeding, while not the blissful TV commercial, is still pretty miraculous. Humbling and painful, but miraculous. Now if only I could figure out a way to convince my daughter that I am also the Strained Peas Goddess, or the Brussels Sprouts Goddess, maybe someday even the Keys to the Car Goddess, or the Stay Out Past Curfew Goddess....