There are many myths and lies that surround pregnancy and motherhood. Its logical that growing a baby inside your own body is not going to be a comfortable or particularly pleasant experience so i never pined for the 'glowing' and wandering around rubbing my belly and talking to it. But i didn't realise the lies extended into early motherhood.
My newest 'beef' is breastfeeding. I think most people will agree that breast milk is best for babies, a human making milk for a little human makes sense and seems like it would be tailored better to our own breeds needs, better than cows milk for instance. However, i didn't realise that people lied about how pleasant the experience of actually getting the milk into the baby is. Breastfeeding sucks, and I'm not afraid to say, 'I hate breastfeeding'. i do. i hate it. It hurts like crazy, after a period in hospital when people kept saying i had a high pain threshold, how can this process be soo unbearable.
If it hadn't hurt so much i would have written on here about the heartfelt social awkwardness felt when a cute little human being wants to suck on your nipples: That's an uncomfortable sentence isn't it, breasts are to be put on display to make you look sexy, to be placed on the bar to get served quicker, to be paraded in little bikini's to emphasise the undulating curves of a woman's body- and now you want me to suckle something on them and in the process remove all these pre-existing functions. arhghghg.
I'm an adult, and Starbucks needs me, (and it all was initiated after a long birth when a midwife i had never seen before suddenly manhandled me into my babies mouth for 10 minutes of unpleasantries when i would have done anything anyone in a uniform told me to), so i can get over this and know that feeding her is..... essential..... and i do believe it is best. However, it really hurts.
I asked specifically at NCT classes if it hurt, and they perpetuated the lie, 'No'. It does. It hurts like glass is being sucked down your veins, like someone is sawing your nipple off with the edge of a fern. Sometimes people say I'm not doing it right, but no one can tell me what to change. So the next 'go to' answer is, 'ah well, it'll all settle down after a few months'. A few months, the baby can only go a few hours before she is crying again and the only thing to satiate her is my sore and throbbing nipple. Its enough to make you resent the little one a bit, to decipher her cries as anything other than hunger, and to some nights sob out loud while passing the floor in the dark trying to sooth the baby to sleep.
Everyone I've asked has agreed that they found it very painful at first, and each has their own story of skin hanging off nipples, raw wounds and insurmountable aversion. But they have all bizarrely persevered and are now earth mothers themselves.
I'll keep going taking a day at a time (although it all seems marginally better when the day light kicks in), trying to grow the human as best i can, but it seems impossible that she will be exclusively breastfed for six months as the books recommend. The only compliment is there appears to be no better feeling than a successful breastfeed when the baby chooses to stop drinking, leans back with a drunken milk expression and is 100% content. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, its as good as conquering the world!
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