Breast vs. Bottle: Smackdown (Part 3)

I told Tim that breastfeeding babies are, in one respect, like bad high school dates: they're only interested in one thing, and it isn't mommy's brain. But as funny as it is to watch Rain nurse (at times, she uses her arms to completely hide my breast and her face, so I say, "Would you like me to leave you two alone?"), that isn't the funniest thing about breastfeeding.

The most uncomfortable, and often hilariously humiliating, thing about breastfeeding is that I'm not the plant manager. For the first time in my life, I'm not in control of one of my bodily functions. What I'm saying is, milk can come of it's own accord. When I was pregnant, I was told by my childbirth instructor that moms can release milk (a process called "letdown") just by hearing a baby cry (not just her own, either), thinking of her baby, or for no obvious reason at all. Know what I did with that bit of information? I put it in the "Sucker" pile. I thought, "Only a total wuss would spill milk at the drop of a hat." I figured those moms were the kind of women who had always wanted to be moms and probably played house until they were ten. One thing I was sure of, a person who's told a child before, "I have a hole in my heart where love should be," would never be capable of squirty milk, no matter how many babies cried. I thought I was exempt.

The week after Rain was born, I was sitting alone in my bedroom. I was setting up pillows on my bed to get comfortable so I could feed her. She was lying quietly on the floor in the next room, and Tim was going to bring her to me. I had already taken everything off and was mentally scheduling things I needed to do later. Suddenly, Rain began to cry. Without a thought about it or even a warning sign ... well (*blush*) ... let's just say milk came out--sort of launched out, actually, in a rocket kind of way.

I had never seen anything like it. I was mortified. I thought, "I can practically feed her from here!" I grabbed a washcloth to clean up, unable to deny the evidence that my body would never be exactly like it was before pregnancy. After a moment, I laughed. What else could I do?

Rain wears an outfit that says, "I cry over spilt milk." Me, too, honey.