Eavesdropping

“I’m all about babysitters these days.”
“Well that’s because you’ll have another one soon, demanding all of your attention and demanding boob access.”
“Not these boobs. Bottles only thank you.”

This was a conversation between two other mothers on our way out of preschool. As you can guess, one of them is very pregnant and due at the end of the month. They are both wonderfully sweet women. But I gotta tell you, this comment really took me off guard. And since it’s occupying most of my brain right now, I thought I’d write about it to try to get it out of my head so I can focus on other things. Like the migraine hangover I have. And everything that needs to be done.

I’m just completely flabbergasted. I guess I’m naïve enough to think that every woman would want to breastfeed their babies the moment they emerged from the womb. I have to say that before Elijah was born I sort of took it for granted that it would just be something that I’d be able to do with little to no problem. Until I read a breastfeeding book. And even though it was a really liberal, really fun book, it still scared the shit out of me. Because it broke my illusion and told me that nursing was work.

And it was work. But worth every minute of it. And I chose to let my children self-wean when they were ready. This meant that The Boy nursed until he was 22 months and The Girl nursed until she was 30 months. Now I can fully understand not every woman wanting to take on that sort of time commitment. I was lucky that I had the space and support to do it. But I simply CANNOT imagine choosing not to nurse at all. Not only is it totally confusing, but it makes me very, very sad.

Nursing my children was such a gift and such an avenue for soul level bonding for us. Not to say that it’s the only way to bond. But because I had the choice to nurse my children, I couldn’t imagine ever choosing a bottle over that opportunity.