There are two sorts of mothers (on those particular forums): the ones preaching that fed is best, and the ones whose 8-year-olds are like, “Mummy, might I please avail myself of the products of your lactation?” I am, in principle, fed is best. In practice, I nursed both times around, each time for just over a year. One year: too little for the WHO’s recommended two, but still kind of a lot? I never did figure out pumping. I never had to, having yes worked while doing some of this nursing, but never in an office.
Why did I do it? It’s one of those things where something seems right to you and if you can do it, you do it. Was it wise? I have no idea. It’s not great for (the mother’s) sleep. It means being the default up-in-the-night one, prior to sleep-training and then once more in cases of illness, etc.
But it also means not worrying about bottles, a plus when you have a two-month-old and your dishwasher breaks, in the middle of a supply-chain shortage. It’s bonding time, which I’m sure bottle-feeding is as well. It means not having to worry if you have food for the baby until like 10-11 months old, which makes outings easier.
It means flashing people in public, a lot. I did not care. Nobody cares. Maybe they do if you’re Emily Ratajkowski but she and I are, would you believe it, not the same person.
The cost of breastfeeding. I ate more, maybe? I think I eat kind of a lot under normal circumstances as well. It didn’t cost me my job as corporate finance executive that I did not have before and will not have ever unless hit by an especially practical lightning bolt. It’s pumping that’s expensive, I think? I mean I did get a couple nursing bras at like $20 a pop at a pharmacy in the hospital, as well as some marginally higher-end ones I wore while pregnant.
But nursing means you’re still a little bit pregnant for an extra however long you nurse. This means you’re in that category, pregnant or breastfeeding women, and you need to take a prenatal vitamin, can’t have too many coffees, can’t (spontaneously) have alcohol, and can’t do retinol, botox, or any of the other things that apparently improve one’s skin but that I have yet to investigate personally. You can’t wear dresses unless they’re special nursing dresses and what even are those, I did not find out. Regular bras, also impossible, even the comfortable sort, because they need to open a particular way.
Then odd things happen hormonally when you stop, even when you do so slowly and with a baby enthusiastic about all the many foodstuffs not produced by you, or rather not quite so directly. You might, for example, start to feel a lot more normal than you had in nearly two years, but also have a mega-migraine.
A whole new sense of solidarity with cows. Comes with the territory.
I understand your relief.
Times being what they are, jug milk parking can be hard to find.