be careful what you wish for

of course this is more about my boobs.

what? there's more?

yeah. it's surprising how much of my life involves my own boobs now (approximately 40% of my life, actually). so, if you don't care about my boobs, you might want to skip most of this. 

after four weeks of breastfeeding, i can see why the invention of baby formula was heralded as the best thing to happen to women since, say, ever.

breastfeeding, especially at first, isn't all natural instinct and happiness. it's painful, raw, and animalistic. i think the only way the human race survived pre lactation consultant, double-electric breast pump, and nipple shield, is that some women figured it out and just kept the milk supply going. other women had to have been passing around their babies to these community wet nurses to keep them alive until they, themselves, had the hang of it.

from triple-A to triple that

for my entire tween life to present, i've had to psychologically and foam-paddingly compensate for my lack of boobs. luckily, i rock in other areas, so my boobs took up way less than 40% of my time. more like .0000004%. 

then i got knocked up. and they grew. and grew. it. was. awesome. and fun! like having a new toy for the whole family to enjoy (note: our family was just two people at this time). 

then someone mentioned that they would get even bigger when the milk showed up. what? more!? yay! and no huge belly to overshadow their awesomeness. 

and they did. and i now hate them.

they are either engorged and painful or have a tiny human attached to them. and then there is the soreness and the cracking nipples. and thrush. 

oh, thrush, you feel like tiny shards of glass embedded in my angry red nipples. why this whole new dimension of pain. to top it off, i now i think i have a bit of a vaspospasm, so when they inflate every two hours, it's like they're filling with lava. 

the moral of the story: be happy when your body is in stasis. change can be hard. really, really hard and painful. 

old faithfuls

currently i'm making enough milk to feed octomom's brood.

before baby, i was so worried that, because i am such a sound sleeper, that i wouldn't wake up right away when she started to fuss at night.

no need to worry. my boobs wake me up like two competing geysers of pain and hot liquid. i go from a sound sleep to a milk bath in 20 seconds every two hours. during the first days, i would stand over her bed begging her to wake, or i just woke the child up, just to get some relief.

and not only that, but the ladies are not the same size. they compete for dominance, and ms. righty is definitely winning. she's huge. it's annoying (only to me).

chug

i think the pain is slowly ebbing as the days pass, but poor baby has to deal with my production issues. for her, attaching is a lot like trying to get a good grip on the side of softball. and for me, well, when she does get a grip it's vice-like before things settle down.

the last few days after she attaches, around four minutes in, she'll start to gag a little, detach, and re-attack. i wondered why, until i saw a shooting stream of warm milk spray her in the face when she let go last night. poor thing is trying to drink by putting her whole mouth around a garden hose.

but, based on the quantity and heft of dirty diapers, she's getting enough to eat. and all that extra goes in the freezer for the time where i want to drink a whole bottle of wine and celebrate the fact that my sacred vessel has made it through pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding all in one calendar year.

sorry boys

to top it all off, these milk producing fun bags are off limits until everything feels under control. poor, poor husbands of new moms.

oh, wait, screw them. they're not up every two hours nor did they have to push this cantaloupe out into the world and then have it clamp on to their other most sensitive body part just minutes later.

leave me alone and change a diaper or something. i'll let you know when and if my commitment to celibacy ends.