The boobs are hers.

The boobs aren’t yours anymore. Hell, they’re not even mine. They’re hers. Don’t touch them, don’t look at them, don’t even think about them. Is now what I tell my husband.

 Those once youthful, perky sacks of fat on my chest are now soft flaps of stretchy skin that gather sweat underneath them and highlight my body with the miraculous side effect of creating life.

The ordeal a woman goes through with her boobs when supporting life is incredible. During pregnancy they’re full and bountiful and once the initial uncomfortable soreness goes away, you’re quite proud of them. Your tummy is swelling and your bosoms are the lushest and fullest they’ve ever been. You feel good.

 And then your placenta is taken out and holy shit, a cement truck backs on in and dumps a full load in each one of em. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen to EVERY mother. For some women their milk takes days, even up to a week and for some it never comes in due to a whole list of  colourful reasons.

 In my drug fueled high the night of Lucas birth, my midwife proceeded to milk my nipples. I wasn’t really prepared for that but I did feel a little uneducated with the whole breast feeding saga so I let her continue. At 2 am, sitting upright in my bed, covered in Lucas pooh and bits of my uterus my midwife proceeded to milk me. “This is how we get your colostrum out” she said smiling down at me. I awkwardly smiled back. She was sucking up droplets of my golden liquid into a syringe as she squeezed, pulled and tugged at my nipples.

Lucas mouth was too small and she was too weak to be able to suckle from me and this is how we were to feed her until she gathered her strength.

Wowsers! I didn’t see that coming.

I automatically thought she would just feed from me, but no. I had to milk myself for days. I had to learn how to milk myself and catch it in the syringe at the same time. It was a long, torturous process and when lazy, I pressed the buzzer for the nurses to come and do it for me!

They were so good at it.

“Buzzzzzz” went the buzzer and in would come a nurse.

“How can I help Sarah?”

“Could you please help milk me?” I would ask them.

 And just like that, there I was sitting up right in my bed being milked by an adult human.

A couple of days went by before I had mastered the whole catching colostrum thing. The liquid started getting thinner and paler and by day 3 my milk came in and I was told I would be able to breastfeed properly now…But no, Luca still wouldn’t suckle properly. My boobs ached and were begging to be emptied.

 I remember when my milk properly came in. The feeling of the milk ‘dropping’. Woman had told me I’d be able to feel it ‘drop’ but I never really understood until I felt it for myself.

It felt like a million, thousand tiny ants were trying to bite their way into my nipple. Like tiny electric currents surging through my nipples. Ouch! Milk started dripping out of my boobs.

 I remember I had woken up peacefully in my room, stretched out and yawned  and then I felt them. Hard, solid boulders and a soggy pyjama top sticking to my chest. I never imagined them to feel like that. I could literally knock on them like a piece of wood. They were ‘that’ hard.

Huge, blue veins pulsed under the thin skin. Ew!

My neck became an extension of my breasts.

Holy moly! They. were. HUUUUUGE.

And sore…

Oh my god!

So, so sore.

The pain hit me.

I had to empty them asap but baby girl still wouldn’t latch properly. I tried and tried attaching her and ended up causing ourselves so much grief. She was crying from frustration and hunger. I was crying because I felt pangs of failure, guilt, confusion and panic.

 The nurses were attempting to attach her to me by shoving and squishing her innocent little face against my rock solid boulders. She was choking on my nipples. It was horrendous. I wanted them to stop but I knew she had to feed.

 This went on all day. The shoving and crying.

 I felt really anxious that I wasn’t doing things right. Why wouldn’t she attach? She so desperately needed to feed from me but couldn’t.

 A searing, white hot, burning pain flooded my nipples as she tried and failed to suckle from me each time.

It felt like everyone was pressuring me to keep trying to put her on.

“Try again”

“Try again”

“It’s important you try again”

 Again and again and again her face was forced and smushed into me.

I tried and failed each time. And with each time came more pain and more tears. I held myself together with each attempt but silently whimpered when the nurses left.

I hated seeing her like that.

As a feeding time would approach,  I would get so anxious and the feeling of dread would bubble up inside me. This wasn’t in my plan.

 And then….. A lactation consultant was doing her rounds one morning and came to see me.

She offered me a nipple shield.

It worked.

That tiny latex nipple was a god send. It suctioned onto me and hallelujah! Luca started to feed.

She fed and fed and fed. A feeling of relief flooded over me. The weight, guilt, panic and frustration had been lifted. No more tears from either of us.Luca was a happy feeding bubba and I was a happy, relieved Mumma.

We fed like this all day.  

Untill…

Another bloody lactation nurse came in 12 hours later and scoffed at me for using a nipple shield.

“Who gave you that? Your milk is going to dry up if you continue to use that thing. Your baby will never learn how to feed from you using that”

 And she took it off me.

 I was so confused. So, so confused.

 One lactation consultant gave it to me, and another took it off me.

I began to panic and dread feeding time again. The tears came back. The anxiety, the feeling of failure and syringe feeding returned as she couldn’t feed from me.

 The nipple shield had solved all of our problems and now it was taken from me and the fear of god had been drilled into me for using it.

 I did the only thing I had to left to do.

The group text.

I got on my phone and sent out a message to my friend mummas asking their thoughts on the use of the ‘sinful’ nipple shield. And you know what?… 4 outta 5 of them had used a nipple shield for AT LEAST the first few months of giving birth and they had no problems what so ever with their milk drying up.

 It all of a sudden seemed so common to use one.

So right then and there I squashed my fearful feelings of dread and pain away, threw down my phone and stormed out (more like shuffled) in search of my nipple shield.

 God damn it, milk was seeping through my pyjama top as I shuffled through the corridor. The waft of oatmealy sogginess trailing behind me.

Using the shield was NOT gonna dry these puppies up, I thought. I had an overload of milk.

 I found the lactation consultant, demanded my nipple shield back and set off to feed my baby girl in peace.

I was successfully breastfeeding again…with a little latex help. But it felt so good to be feeding her in my arms.  

 And I continued to used the nipple shield for 5 months.

And my baby did not die of starvation.

And my milk did not dry up.

And she did learn how to suckle without it.

And I never felt anxious about breastfeeding again.

And we all lived happily ever after.

The end.