Breastfeeding class – our first brush with the lactation Nazis… 36 weeks

Most of my friends have decided to breastfeed their babies and been pretty happy with it and it seems to be the latest recommendation, so I decided I’d try. A number of my friends had mentioned issues / difficulties at the beginning, so I decided to take the class. I wasn’t sure if my husband should go too, but my friends assured me that their husbands had gone. Then he wasn’t so sure he should go – what would he do? What if the other husbands didn’t go? “What if it’s just me and a bunch of … big breasted women…? Yeah, OK, I’ll go.”

We got there (late, as was our standard with these classes now) and my husband was not the only guy – everyone had come as a couple (thank goodness). The lactation consultant began by explaining all the benefits of breastfeeding. It was definitely the sales pitch to drink the Kool-Aid on this one – a concept that amused me as, well hadn’t we all already drank the Kool-Aid if we’d decided to be there in the first place? (A watered down Kool Aid without too much sugar and no artificial flavors or colors to be exact!) Then she got into more specifics – the different holds and getting the baby to latch. We had not been told to bring a doll, so she went to us one by one with the demonstration doll to walk through what to do (clothed, thank God!). We were supposed to “tickle” the baby’s mouth with our nipple (while she said – tickle, tickle, tickle to instruct us – a moment at which I knew it was a bad idea to bring My husband despite all the other Dad’s here as I was surely going to be hearing his imitation of that every time I tried to feed our child…). Then she’d push the baby’s head into us to imitate her getting the latch. Great… Sadly I was the first one for the demonstration, so all eyes were on me and the doll as I pretended to tickle the doll’s face with my boob (oh man, I really never thought I’d type that phrase in my life. Seriously. Never.). I should probably take a step back here to describe my boob (and let’s go ahead and put that down as phrase two I hardly saw coming out of my mouth / fingers online. I swear! I don’t frequent those types of sites!). You see I’m generally not a big person – a reasonable height, but small boned and small frame, so I’ve always been fairly small chested. I’m not generally TOO self conscious about this as I’d say I’m pretty proportional overall. I mean, on my frame big boobs would tip me over (I’m shocked I’ve been able to move with this belly!). But at the same time, I was sort of looking forward to my late second puberty and mammaries finally arriving with pregnancy. I thought they’d arrive right at the beginning – as so many women seem to say that’s the first sign. I did notice a little increase there / soreness in my chest, but nothing major. Then I thought they’d have to arrive before the baby, but 36 weeks and nothing. I remember a friend of mine with a similar build had told me at 7 months that she’d gone from a B cup to E! Now I didn’t really want an E – although I think it might be surreal and wouldn’t be so bad as it wouldn’t last (though God knows what that would like when it finally deflated...), but I figured I’d easily move into a solid C or D. But thus far – nothing! OK, not entirely nothing. I’ve move from a B to a “full” B. Anyway, you get the picture – that me trying to grab hold of my snack sized baby lunch tray and wiggle it to tickle her wasn’t doing much. Thank God there’s an audience of other class members for this. I mean, one certainly wouldn’t want to do this sort of thing on one’s own…

Eventually we got to the questions and our fearless leader was on the party line – Me – can you use ziplock freezer bags (I’d gotten a bunch from a friend in her gift of my full service / filled diaper bag)? The lactation consultant – No! You’d think I’d ask if I could use battery acid to preserve it…

They got better after that – I asked about the breastfeeding diet. She said you could eat anything. So I clarified that I wanted to be sure you didn’t need to stick to the pregnancy diet – no sushi, limited fish, no soft cheeses. Well, you should really avoid those things, but there are not diet restrictions and you can eat anything – except all the things they told you not to eat pregnant. But you don’t have to stick to your pregnancy diet. Um… OK…

So someone else asked if it mattered if you ate healthy or if formula would be better. The lactation consultant, of course, said that breastmilk was always better. The woman asked – well, what if you ate only candy bars and nothing with nutritional value? Nope, still breastmilk.

Now I’m not sure if my fellow classmate was just trying to get the instructor to slip up / admit an instance where formula would be OK or that there could EVER be anything wrong with breastmilk. I think she might have just been an odd duck though…