An Open Letter to My Breasts:

I owe you an apology. Since puberty, when you joined me in my struggle to obtain a positive body image, you have faithfully stuck to my chest in perky B-cup fashion. Yet I disdained you for being too far apart and not big enough. Pregnancy changed all that and taught me once again that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

You were the first one to tell me that I was pregnant, when my husband noticed that you were suddenly… well, bigger. I had been so tired all that week, and I had quit partying and eating McDonald’s, but I wasn’t losing any weight. So I put two and two together and voila — a positive line on the pee test.

Once the hormones of pregnancy hit, you swelled to bodacious proportions, and I was so proud. I wore sexy camisoles, and I looked at you in the mirror and loved you. I did not allow my husband to touch you, however, because you were sensitive and itchy. So itchy. I really tried not to abuse you by scratching you, because it scared the guy in the next cubicle. Also because I knew you would come in handy when I delivered my baby. You would provide him with food, for free! And fueling you would leave me obligated to consume mass quantities of calories without guilt, a luxury I eagerly anticipated. I didn’t realize that the real abuse was ahead of us.

I didn’t attend a breastfeeding class, even though my friends warned me (as I wish to warn all pregnant women because I thought, “How hard can it be?” Besides, I watched the video in childbirth class. Okay, it scared me to death, because the women were only shown from the chin down, and the camera focused on their breasts — alone or with a baby attached to one of them. The video basically made it look like a woman exists merely to have her boobs expand 1,000-fold during the months after childbirth, in order to constantly feed the hungry little suckling who seems so innocent, but can cause CLOGGED MILK DUCTS or SORE and CRACKED NIPPLES. I swear the babies looked and acted like newborn pigs.

Some mothers advised me to twist my nipples every day to prepare for the rigorous workout of breastfeeding. I have to confess: I tried this once, but it was painful and I don’t like pain, and also it turned me on a little, which I decided wasn’t right. So I gave up on preparation and figured the hospital’s lactation consultant would coach my baby and me once he arrived. But everything happened so fast, and before I knew it I was laying there in the delivery room with a blinky, hungry little guy. The labor and delivery nurse grabbed you, my left breast, stuck the baby on you, and said, “Just make sure he doesn’t suffocate.” So much for a gentle introduction.

Actually breasts, if you can remember, at first it wasn’t so bad. Kyle nursed like a champ in the hospital for those first few nights and it didn’t even hurt. I figured that once my milk actually came in it would be no sweat. Fast forward a few days when you swelled up so much that you were bigger than Kyle’s head! You hurt so bad before a feeding, during a feeding, and after a feeding that I could be found at any given time of the day holding either a hot washcloth or a package of frozen mango chunks up against you.
And my poor nipples. Kyle nursed so much and so often that you turned bright red and had angry bruises around you. When I heard his hungry cry my stomach turned, and I swear I could hear you screaming “NOOOO!!” But I was determined to breastfeed that child if it killed us. A few times my husband offered to give the baby a bottle of formula, just to give us a break, but I would shout at him and tell him I wanted nothing but the best for my baby and resorting to formula would look too much like defeat. I think you sagged from disappointment.

During this painful time, the one silver lining was that you looked even better than you did when I was pregnant. My husband kept asking me if he could take a picture of you, you know, to save for the future. I almost let him, but I never got around to it.

I wanted you to perform for my baby so badly that I lathered you with lanolin cream, saddled you up in nursing bras (even when I was asleep, massaged you in the shower, ate oatmeal and fenugreek and blessed thistle, and drank Mother’s Milk tea and lots and lots of water. After a few weeks, the nipple pain did go away and we were a great team. We nursed Kyle exclusively for four and a half months, and he grew fat and happy from the milk you gave him.

Then to prepare for being away from Kyle, we pumped the milk out of you. You sure didn’t like that, but you dutifully emptied your contents into the little bottles at least once a day. One time, when I had drunk too much wine, you gave me LOTS and LOTS of extra milk, which I sadly had to throw away, because I didn’t want to make the baby drunk. It was so hard to get extra milk out of you that I cried as I poured it down the sink.

Eventually you got tired of the abuse, and you stopped putting out. First you withheld during pumping. Then you gave us the silent treatment during the afternoon feeding, forcing me to give Kyle some (gasp! formula. One feeding led to two, then three, then we were only nursing Kyle right before bed and first thing in the morning. Finally, around the time he was nine months old, the morning feed was the only one left, and even THAT started feeling really…weird. Unnatural. You weren’t as big as before, and you never felt full of milk anymore. It was like you were sending me a message. Luckily, Kyle didn’t seem too attached to you, and he took a bottle without a problem.

So now we are done breastfeeding, and you are deflated. Spent, dangly and sad, you don’t even fit properly into my old bras, the ones I put on you before I got pregnant. Now I encase you in matronly bras with extra support, taking away any sex appeal you had left. I have to find a way to make you attractive again, or we’ll have no chance of getting pregnant a second time. Because that’s when you really shine.

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kim@themommytimes.com