NYC Mayor and Baby Formula Showdown!

I’m a firm believer in the benefits of breast feeding that adorable new baby, gestated for nine months (more or less)! Eat, exercise, sleep, drink, and nourish the body, so that you bring into the world a beautiful, healthy human being: you did everything right, M-O-M! Hoping that the baby would take after as many members of your family as possible, after dealing with all the in laws, and the “baby Daddy” sense of humor & drama! LaMaze class instruction said to focus on “breathing”, not “the pain”, b-r-e-a-t-h-e, whew, remember that lesson!

And before you know it, you are ready to deliver, you’re told that cholostrum is the initial nutrient that comes out of your breasts, and that Mother’s milk usually comes on the third day! However, the baby will “latch” to your breast, and that cholostrum is a fanatastic super-food for the little one!

Wow, super-Mom & super-Food: A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

On a personal note, my Mother always bragged about having so much Mother’s milk, it actually spilled from her babies’ mouths! Now its my turn, however, after the painful experience of breast engorgement, and going to a bra size of a healthy 38CC a few days after delivery, I can only say: H-E-L-P!

I am daunted, stunned, and feel totally D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D!

With a new baby called “barracuda”, by my lovely baby nurse “Bambi” (I am not kidding here), whose voracious appetite was only surpassed by the amount of love that surrounded him; I can say that nursing my babies, was the hardest work I’ve ever done! It was a constant job: hot compresses, hot showers, breast pump, soft music, Madonna’s “Express Yourself“, pediatrician’s advice, my Mother’s bragging, my Mother-In-Law‘s avoidance, and M-Y G-U-I-L-T!

I felt like a horrible parent, a Mother that couldn’t physically feed her child, and had to rely on the interference of….gasp….Baby F-O-R-M-U-L-A!! However, my baby flourished, and went from eight pounds one ounce at birth, to twelve pounds for his two week pediatric checkup. B-A-R-R-A-C-U-D-A!

Pediatric check ups reassured me, that I was doing a G-O-O-D job! The moments that I spent nursing my children will be with me forever; they were magical moments of bonding, and looking a the star filled skies lit by the moon. I kissed, and looked at their little hands, as they took another sleepy aim for their Mom’s breast.

However, the struggle I endured to nurse my babies for their first three months of life, was emotionally daunting due to my guilt ridden expectations of being a Super-Lactating-Mom (now expressed as #SLM)! Three months of nursing, I wanted to at least do that much for them, and I did.

Why was my ability to nurse so marginal, after all it seemed that it wasn’t hereditary? I succeeded at almost everything I ever did, what was going on? I know now that I have dense breast tissue, and that even mammograms are insufficient to laser (x-ray) my p-e-r-k-y girls!

Maybe we can’t control how we’re born, or how we’re put together, or even how much mother’s milk we’re able to produce for our babies! Defying every expert thought, advice, or old-wives tale, the story is that the breast makes it’s own rules! In my case, my children benefited from the feeding intervention of Baby Formula, as well as breast feeding. I could not have managed with out formula, and my little ones would not not have had adequate nutrition!

As for my G-U-I-L-T, well it has subsided, and turned into unblesmished, un-scarred P-E-R-K-Y breasts that have stood their ground with every passing year! I have to opt for ultrasounds, as well as mammography screenings, to have adequate well care.

Sure, I may ultimately have a nip & tuck, but my breasts they have nothing to worry about!

(*) (*) #SLM

The Furry Starts Here

Images Courtesy of: Bing Images

Questions about Breast Feeding: “The mission of La Leche League USA is to help mothers to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education, and to promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy development of the baby, and mother.”