Milk and Boobs

Milk:
This morning Ivan woke up at 5 a.m. for some reason and gurgled and talked and banged on stuff in his bed for about half an hour, when he started wailing....so I went over picked him up and nursed him. And lo and behold, he did. Not as much as yesterday morning, but he nursed. (Since I felt that he didn't nurse as much as the previous time, I was concerned all day that my left boob is still more deflated and lighter than the right one). The I procured the milk and plopped him back to bed. He slept until 7:15 or so. There was a 6 a.m. incident with Mariposa just deciding to pee on the bedroom floor without really asking to go out. I don't know what happened there because she's usually good at demanding to be let out at night. So after that ruckus abated (during which Mr. Meh was up in his crib trying to get as good of a view as possible and demanding to be part of the action -- we ignored him), he calmed down and fell back asleep.

Apparently he slept well during the day as well. Textbook day, it was today. In the evening, after I bathed him, he became his cranky, wrapped-in-a-towel self and demanded to nurse, which he did. But since I alternate boobs he again nursed on the left boob (the ligther one). Of course, he nursed a lot just on that one boob.....which I'm convinced screwed up the boob size and balance some more.

Boobs:
I have nightmares about this boob business because a few weeks before I gave birth, I went to a breastfeeding class at the DC Breastfeeding Center. One of the suggestions to keep the milk flowing was to always alternate the boob from which the baby nurses first. I've been following that. And to help me remember which boob comes next, (after a while it becomes impossible to remember something as simple as that) I keep switching my wedding ring from left to right finger.

However, some babies prefer to nurse on one side, or sometimes one boob produces more milk than the other (I guess hence the baby's preference). After time, this constant one-sided nursing can apparently cause one boob to remain small and the other one to grow bigger and bigger and sag more and more.

"You've never seen those tribal women in National Georgraphic with one breast hanging down much further than the other," Pat, the breastfeeding instructor, asked when we were discussing this subject, as she demonstrated, cupping her one hand and lowering it down to her hip, while keeping the other cupped hand over her other breast.

The horror. Although I don't recall ever noticing a National Geographic tribal woman with her exposed breasts grossly out of proportion, it didn't take much to form such an image in my mind. A fully body shot of a naked tribal woman with a spear or a poll in her hand, beads around her neck, some sort of cotton-straw garment tied around her hips, looking the camera straight on. With scenery and all.

Although this class happened over a year ago, that image I photoshopped in my head haunts me to this day. So does the fear that not only my boobs will be deflated and hanging more than they were before but that one will hang all the way down to my hip.

I must admit, however, that the fear of the sagging boob is as old as my boobs. As soon as my prepubescent fat turned into breast tissue way back at the age of 12 or so, I had these nigthmares that unless I wear a bra all the time (well not during the night) that my breasts will eventually sag to my hips.

Luckily this hasn't happened yet.