Marjorie Writes…

Just Do It

I just watched a YouTube video someone had posted on Facebook. Wow, talk about powerful! I don’t know what the laws are concerning these posts, but I’m sharing the link here: http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiS8q_fifa0. All of the attributions are on the YouTube post.

Did you watch it? Amazing, right? She made some incredible points. A friend of mine, after watching the video, said, “Boobs are functional, but they are also objects of beauty.” He had a good point. My response was that they were never more beautiful than when providing sustenance to a baby.

This poem by this woman, Hollie, was incredibly moving. And it made me remember my experiences as a new mother. First of all, I was shy about having my breasts out in public (and they say childbirth takes away a woman’s modesty!). And while I’d gotten the hang of getting the baby latched on, I wasn’t so adept at it when combined with subtlety. So for the first month or so, I tried to only nurse my daughter when I was somewhere I could do it in private.

Then my brother came in town. And you know, no matter how well you get the schedule down for feeding a baby, babies go through growth spurts and change their schedules, or make their mothers change their schedules, depending on their needs. So when my daughter was maybe a month and a half, we went to the airport to pick him up. And as we were waiting for his plane, with more than plenty of time before her next scheduled feeding, she started crying. After a while, a mother learns to recognize what her baby’s cries mean, and this one meant she was hungry. I tried soothing her, but she wasn’t interested in anything other than being fed.

It was at this point I took my first foray into public breastfeeding. Using one of the baby blankets to cover her head (and my breast, stomach, etc), I began to nurse her. But of course, she didn’t want to be covered. What’s a mother to do. I did my best to make it as discreet as possible.

And so began my foray into breastfeeding my baby in front of others. I am pretty sure I flashed my husband’s cousin. Oh well, I’m sure he wasn’t the only one who got a flash. And guess what, that’s ok. I was feeding my baby and that was more important than a little modesty (not that I did it on purpose, or wasn’t embarrassed).

I nursed my daughter for the first year of her life. I became very proficient. By the time my son came along, I was an old pro. And I knew the tricks, and had the wardrobe (nursing shirts and bras made it easier). In fact, I worked for my father when my son was born, and I was running a cash register with a long line of customers one day when my son announced his hunger. So I put him in the Baby Bjorn carrier (greatest invention at the time – he was a big boy and with the lumbar support I had no pain or discomfort with him in there), and quickly got him latched on, and voila, I went back to ringing up customers and taking orders. And everyone just assumed he was sleeping in there! Given people’s reactions sometimes at breastfeeding in public, I got a kick out of it.

So nurse your babies when they need it, no matter where you are. How is that somehow not acceptable, when you see less of the breast with a baby in front of it than you see by modern fashions with shirts cut down to there? Or on the beach with the little bikinis or even tank suits that are revealing. There’s nothing more natural, more beautiful, and more healthy for your baby!

Live, laugh, love….it makes it all worthwhile!