self portrait as...a modern day mother & child
07.25.2006
Creativity has been the name of the game for me this summer. Most of my energies have been going into making prints and jewelry and not blogging...but that's how my blog is in the summer. I am, however, grateful for the ongoing self-portrait challenge project that pulls me out my mothering mind (another creative endeavor) and gives me something to think about and play with from Tuesday to Tuesday. Something that is all mine :)
Since I've been spending a great deal of time tending to my little flock of two, I thought I'd memorialize a mothering activity that I've spent countless hours doing over the last two and half years: breastfeeding. When our littlest one was born I was extremely nervous about whether or not I'd be able to breastfeed. With our first child I had a LOT of problems and was eventually told that I didn't have enough mammary tissue to nourish my child. I was devastated. I felt a little less than a woman. I pumped for months and even taped a tube to my breast which provided formula in hopes stimulating milk production and nothing seemed to work.
I was diagnosed with cancer a year and half later. The cancer had been growing for a long time and I often wondered if that somehow affected my ability to breastfeed. When I became pregnant again, the thing I worried about THE MOST was whether or not I would be able to nurse. I wasn't worried about labor so much. Happily, everything turned out. We had the homebirth we planned for...although we hadn't planned on having a 45 minute labor and certainly didn't plan on giving birth without our midwife :) Best of all, we experienced zero issues in the breastfeeding department.
I was pretty nervous in the beginning though. I was concerned with being discreet, especially since I'm ample up top...buuuuuutttt, those days are gone. I've fed our daughter on Thomas the Tank Engine (a real one) in the grocery store, in restaurants, at the beach, in a bowling alley, anywhere people eat, my daughter has nursed. I've had stares here and there but I choose to think they are staring because they love babies and probably don't see women nursing very often, which I think is kind of sad. So, here's to all the women of the world both past and present who have spent hours and hours and hours and hours nourishing the little people. It is sometimes toilsome but it reaps countless rewards.
**photo: Mother & Child ....and some novice photoshopping
Reader Comments (7)
it is ridiculous that breastfeeding has become as controversial as it is. argh.
happy rest of the summer to you!
maybe i'll see you at the river on labor day?