Breastfeeding Sucks

Before anybody gets het up, let me just say that I truly believe breastfeeding is best (hell, even the formula companies will tell you that), that I advise all of the fecund ones in my life to breastfeed, and that I believe women in our society give up too soon on breastfeeding. I further believe that breastfeeding my son, keeping him alive solely on a product of my body, was one of the most empowering things I ever did as a woman. Having said that, a recent thread on one of the forums I visit centered around breastfeeding and I realized, once again, what a load of crap women are fed by many breastfeeding books and sites. I, NotHannah, decided it was time to become The Decrapinator.

See, I realized two days into breastfeeding that nobody had given me the real deal Holyfield when it came to the truth about the whole "baby eating from my body" thing. It was, I discovered, hard as hell. I'm sure the reason that all of the organizations and doctors and whathaveyou that advocate breastfeeding don't say "It's hard as hell" is because there are lots of women out there who would prefer things that are "easy as shit." Point taken. But for a woman like me, a realist with an edge who prefers to know exactly how bad it's going to be before it gets bad, the truth smacked me upside the head.

The Decrapination is for women like me.

What "they" say: "It might be a little uncomfortable."
The Decrapinated Truth: Breastfeeding hurts at first, even if you do it right (see below). Forget "a little uncomfortable" and trust me when I say that none of the men or women in your life have ever clamped down on that tender bit of flesh (um, your nipple) as viciously as a newborn baby. And this happens, you know, every two hours or so. Ouch. There are things you can do (oh, blessed, blessed Lansinoh), but pretty much until the baby figures out how to latch and your nipples develop what I referred to as "calluses," it's going to hurt. And yes, I said "calluses." As in, "Hey, my nipples are now hard enough to cut glass. Awesome." Don't worry, they PEEL OFF when you're finished breastfeeding. (Go read the last paragraph. Right now. Go.)
What they say: "It's the most natural thing in the world."
The Decrapinated Truth: Natural does not equal "easy." I am totally convinced that breastfeeding is a "survival of the fittest" thing. Because, natural as it is, for the first two weeks, you feel like a complete alien. It happens right after birth: you're sore and exhausted and shaky and all of a sudden, there is, HELLO, a person who doesn't want to have sex with you attached to your nipple. In front of your husband, mom, dad, and a nurse you don't know. WTF??? It doesn't make it any easier to know that you're going to feed this person, because HELLO--you're feeding a person with one of your body parts. Further, this body part isn't like your legs or your hands or, you know, your brain. It has served no other purpose in your life up to this point than to sit there and look cute. Now you're asking it to provide sustenance for another life form. Making it even worse is the fact that there will be people suddenly grabbing hold of it as if it weren't really attached to your body(and, incidentally, feeling tenderish at the moment) and manipulating it in ways that it has NEVER been manipulated. One of them will be your lactation nurse. The other will be your husband, who is crying with you at two in the morning because smooshums WON'T FRICKIN' LATCH. Speaking of (in two parts)... (Also, go read the last paragraph.)
What "they" say: Proper latching can be achieved by (insert various jargon about aereolas and holds and suction.)
The Decrapinated Truth: Proper latching can be achieved by crying, having your husband shove the baby on your boob, having one of your friends watch you and point out what you're doing wrong, calling the lactation consultant, asking your pediatrician what you're doing wrong, yelling at your frazzled husband that no, you don't want to just give in and give your smooshums a bottle, and crying again. Turns out that some babies don't latch right. Turns out that this can give you nipples that are sore beyond the regular "damn, there's a person eating from my boob" pain. Turns out that this can give you mastitis. Even bigger ouch. SEEK HELP (and read the last paragraph.)
What "they" say: It's important to have a supportive partner.
The Decrapinated Truth: Okay, this is true. But what "they" fail to tell you is that while you shift into "Nurturer" role, your partner is feeling all "Provider/Caretaker." Which means that when you and smooshums are wigging out at 2 in the morning, h/she is going to go into this weird place where the only thing important is that the two people he loves most are happy. H/she won't care if that means that h/she has to invent a time machine and travel back to medieval England to find a wet nurse. H/she just wants the crying to stop. So when h/she is dangling a bottle of formula in front of your streaming eyes, h/she is being supportive. Clueless, but supportive.
What "they" say: Breasfeeding will give you a cosmic bond with your baby.
The Decrapinated Truth: Um, what? Look, a lot of women who breasfed will tell you that they felt a thrill when they looked into their shmooshums' eyes while breastfeeding, that their souls entwined or whatever. Honestly, I think all women who are feeding their babies have that. That's just what moms and babies DO: get all soul-entwined. But this is a lovely opportunity for me to point out that for whatever reason, baby feeding is a huge, hot-button issue. No matter what you decide, expect perfect strangers to give their opinion about it. Sometimes loudly or hurtfully. It seems pretty weird, I know. Who knew that keeping a person alive could piss so many people off?
So, yeah, breastfeeding sucks. The above difficulties have caused many a woman to give up. And it must be said that even after Herculean efforts to get the boobies a-workin', some women cannot breastfeed.
HERE'S THE REALLY IMPORTANT PART: You can do it. Give yourself two weeks. A nurse friend whose babies couldn't get the hang of latching and who pumped for six weeks straight told me that. After two weeks, something changes. The baby figures it out. You figure it out. Your nipples give a little sigh and get ready for the long haul. Things get better. A month passes. You know longer think twice about whipping your boob out in front of your husband's best friend or your brother's new girlfriend. Six months pass. You could breastfeed your kid while climbing Mount Fuji. You can pump AND type a sales report at the same time. You can do it. The Decrapinator wouldn't lie.

Waiting for the Editor Again

I love lists. And random thoughts. Here's a list of random thoughts. Will the madness ever end?

1. I'm in the process of redesigning my blog. Thus far, I've suceeded only in dumping my links and my counter. Damn it. Right when I got a whopping EIGHT COMMENTS on the previous post. Sigh.
2. My night job requires that I watch TV, but not TV that I want to watch. "Lost" is on, people. I'm missing finding out why Mercutio went all nutty and shot ladies. I'm missing looking at Sayid's lickable face. I'm missing wondering if Sawyer is Aragorn's sweaty redneck cousin. "Lost" is the show for folks who like "Myst" better than "Doom." I am one of those folks and I am stuck here watching a frickin' Yankees game. Barf.
3. You want to know what pisses me off? I'm stuck here watching a frickin' Yankees game and I guaran-damn-tee you that no man who works for the company for which I work is watching a Lifetime movie. Sorry to be all clinging to stereotypes, but I'd rather watch Meredith Baxter Birney bake cookies by day and walk the streets by night while Barry Bostwick stays home with the kids than watch baseball. ANY TIME.
4. Jason Giambi gets this blank stare going when he's sitting in the dugout. I wonder what he's thinking about. His next hit? His hair gel? The molecular composition of Gatorade?Why people don't seem to give a fewmet that he was on the juice, but they're all over Barry Bonds? Yeah. That is something to ponder.
5. Johnny Damon, now that he's tamed the fur that surrounded his face and upper body, looks like the love child of Steven Seagal and Billy Ray Cyrus. Don't break his heart. Or he'll break your face.
6. I am totally cracking my own ass up right now.
7. Things Jeffrey has done in the past two weeks:
• Stuck his finger down his throat and made himself vomit. His comment? "I burped all over myself."
• Taken my garden clippers and sheared off the tops of one of my eggplants, a lima bean plant, and a few spears of fennel.
• Written on my rug, wall, and ironing board with a red marker.
• Poured bleach (YES!! HE WENT BACK INTO THE LAUNDRY ROOM!!) all over a clean load of laundry in the dryer. It was color- safe bleach. It was not spanking safe.
• Told me I was too busy all the time to play. Hence, I am sure, the return of Mr. Destructo. I. feel. like. a. bad. mommy.
8. I have to go to bed. Bad mommies need their rest.

Don't Judge Me

A friend recently asked this of me when giving me the URL of her new blog. (If you're that friend, "Hey, girl!! Woss hoppenin?") Upon reading the comment, I thought to myself, "Well, of course I wouldn't. After all, we've been friends forever and..."

And that's when I realized that there was absolutely NO way I couldn't judge her. Sorry. I am, sad to say, a complete judger of my friends and family. If they get jobs I know they'll hate, date people I know will hurt them, put on weight or lose weight or contemplate surgery, wear the wrong outfit, raise their children differently than me...well, all I have to say is, "Dress me in black and call me Judy."

Strangers? I don't judge them. I mean, I might be all, "Damn, girlfriend needs to rethink that hairdo," but I don't think she's crazy for wearing it that way. After all, I don't know her. She might have some sort of hideous growth coming out of the top of her head that warrants that ponytail. She might be hiding demons from a bad Japanese horror movie ripoff up in there. Who's to say? Not me...because I don't know her.

I know my friends and family. I know who they've slept with and who they wish they slept with. I know their real hair colors and what they're afraid of. I know what foods they like and what perfume they wear and how old they were when they first got drunk. I know their mamas and daddys and brothers and sisters and cousins. I know if their Aunt Martha (and there are several in our bunch) is nasty or nice. I've seen most of them naked or at least half-naked (and honestly wish that I hadn't.) I know how they got their scars on their shins and on their hearts. I know their favorite books, movies, TV shows. I know their pet peeves. I can tell you how each of them look when they're mad, sad, bad, or glad. I know some of them better than I know myself.

And so, right or wrong, I hold them all to the same standard I hold for myself. If one of them says something that's bullshit, I call them on it. If one of them does something stupid, I will at the very least discuss the stupid thing with one or more of the others. Oh, the conversations we have about each other. "Can you be-LIEVE that shit?" "I know. She's going to pay for it later." (Please, please don't think that I believe that any of them have not, at one time or the other, judged some stupidass thing I've said, done, or believed. I can always hear the corresponding voice of the judger when I'm in the process of being a stupidass.)

I'm wondering what effect my entry into the blogging/forum world will have on my judgement protocol. I mean, I honestly LIKE some of the women on the mom's forum I frequent, but I haven't met them. I don't really know who they are and as I am geographically far away from most of them, I doubt I'll meet them. (Double that doubt for the bloggers I'm starting to follow.) I don't know if it's possible to become heart-friends with somebody without seeing her face as she laughs at you or tells you that she loves you.

Whaddya think? Am I alone on my bench? *Ooh, check out how I tried to solicit comments from the readers. Wonder if it will work...*