The Glamor of Breast Pumping

I had heard moms refer to it--but much like the pain of childbirth--the gruesome details were not given.

When the lactation nurse at the hospital wheeled in a pump (I call it my "R2 Unit" as in Luke Skywalker's "Me and this R2 Unit have been through a lot together.") just hours after Hale was born and explained to me I should attach it to my breasts 8 times a day for 10-15 minutes, I did not realize she was handing me a new career--as a milk maker.

It takes a serious practice in meditation to move away from images of a dairy farm when pumping milk with Hale no where near my mammaries.

I am reading a trashy novel (Twilight, crack trash not to be given to tweens) that my friend Derek gave me to keep my mind off watching every drop plop in the bottle. I need to now produce 38 ml every three hours to keep up with my son's meals.

Not that I am counting the milliliters... Okay, am a little bit--if I don't produce enough, Hale gets formula. Which I can't help but sneer a bit as I type, even though my brain knows it's fine for him. I can't help but think how breastmilk--"liquid gold"--is the best thing for him.

I started seeing an acupuncturist to help me with lactation. Yes. It involves needles in the boobs themselves. I didn't look. Yes. More milk is coming in. But who knows if it is the needles or the various other things I am trying...

• fenugreek
• other herb pills, from the nice naturopathic acupuncturist--I don't know exactly what they are, but they come in a sweet medieval looking little brown bottle
• Mother's Milk tea
• massive amounts of protein
• sleep (hard to get with the 8x a day pumping)
• and my favorite... skin to skin contact with my Hale (Last night was the first night it just started spontanously spewing from my right breast while he was having a "breast experience" on my left. That is what they call it... "breast experience" when he just hangs out there. "Liquid gold" indeed--the nurse saw this and scampered up with a bottle to hold there to collect the droplets, in fact.)
  

Hale has started to suck a little bit, and it hurts like, well, it hurts like a mothersucker!


This is not a dramatization! It was this painful.

Feeding your baby... who knew... (I mean, apart from all the other mothers, of course!)