Something New

To celebrate World Breastfeeding Week on my personal blog, I challenged myself to come up with seven breastfeeding stories – one for each day of WBW. This one was the most popular.

Happy Hump Day!  Today marks the halfway point of the exciting holiday week known as World Breastfeeding Week.  Only a few more days to get the holiday shopping done.

And here I am, still plugging through with this challenge of coming up with seven breastfeeding stories – one for every day of WBW.  At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but sometimes when I sit down at the computer I wonder what words are going to pour from my nimble fingers.  To add to the insanity, this isn’t a challenge I read about anywhere, but something I just came up with on my own. I never claimed to be the smartest breastpump in the maternal care aisle.

So on this hump day, I thought I’d recount a humorous story from my breastfeeding days.  It is my opinion that breastfeeding mothers have to come equipped with a sense of humor; you can’t spend months and months with bodily secretions spraying everywhere without having a good laugh.

The problem however, is that a lot of the funny things that happen are situational in a you-had-to-be-there sort of way.  So it’s difficult coming up with a funny story that stands on its own.  I’m not sure this fits the bill, but its the best I could do.

It all starts with me.  I startle really easily. Really easily.  As in, my husband can be home, and I KNOW he’s home, but then he walks into the room I’m in and I look up and see him and get the pants scared off me.  I threaten to put cat collars on my family so I can tell they’re within 15 feet of me.  Still, he has a sadistic obsession with setting me up.

My daughter was a couple of months old, so my son was three.  I had just taken a shower, during which unbeknownst to me, my husband had told my son to stand right outside the bathroom door to scare me when I came out.  What a great, supportive family I have.

I opened the bathroom door, naked as a jaybird, and there stood my little son. Holy cow, seeing him right there when I opened the door scared the bejeepers out of me.  Which of course, was the effect my dear husband was going for.

So I opened the door, Son said boo, I screamed, and then…Niagara Falls.  Just when I thought I knew everything about breastfeeding, something new happened.  I learned that a huge scare, when preceded by a nice hot shower makes the milk GO!  Uncontrollably.  From both sides.  Shooting across the room.

A little trick about lactating is that if the flow starts an inopportune time, all one has to do apply pressure, and the flow will stop.  In public this can be discretely accomplished by crossing your arms.  The trick however, is that you have to remember this little tip.  Which I did not.

I was laughing so hard at the completely physiological response to being scared witless that I couldn’t do anything that involved common sense.  Instead, I just leaned over the sink and sprayed about ten gallons down the drain, which just caused me to laugh even harder.  Which of course, didn’t help matters.

My husband came in then when he heard the commotion, thinking that his cruel little plot had been successful.  When he saw the incredible direction his trick was going, (and was still going…and going…and going) I’m sure he felt quite proud of himself.

Several minutes later (still pouring into the sink) I finally did manage to turn my brain on and get everything stopped.

So here’s a tip that’s not in any breastfeeding resources – don’t get scared!

Author: sarah

Sarah has been involved with API since 2002. She is the mother of two school-aged kids. View all posts by sarah