[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
went right on breastfeeding until the child was four years old.
When you hang up, you are even more depressed. Because the
blood is not a problem and your friend suTered even more than
you do now. You don t come in Wrst on the nipple tragic story.
You don t even come close.
This isn t going very well, I try smiling, but give up the
eTort.
Just give it some time. Things ll get better. He snaps oT the
reading light at the head of the bed. I snap it back on.
I don t think so. I don t think things are going to get better at
all.
Don t be so pessimistic, he smiles, trying not to oTend me.
240 WITPUNK
Have you read the pamphlet for fathers of breastfed babies?
Uhm, no. Not yet. Shrugs his shoulders and tries reaching for
the lamp again. I swing out my hand to catch his wrist in midair.
Well read the damn thing, and you might have some idea of
what I m going through.
Women have been breastfeeding since there have been women.
What!
You know what I mean. It s natural. Women have been breast-
feeding ever since their existence, ever since ever having a baby,
he lectures, glancing down once at my tortured breasts.
That doesn t mean they ve all been enjoying it, ever since
existing and having done it since their existence! Natural isn t the
same as liking it or being good at it, I hiss.
Why do you have to be so complicated?
Why don t you just marry someone who isn t, then?
Are you hungry? My mother-in-law whispers from the other
side of the closed bedroom door. I could Wx you something if
you re hungry.
Engorgement
(page 183)
The baby breastfeeds for hours on end. This is not the way it is
supposed to work. You phone the emergency breastfeeding num-
ber they gave to you at the hospital. The breastfeeder profession-
als tell you that Baby is doing what is only natural. That the more
she sucks, the more breastmilk you will produce, how it works on
a supply and demand system and how everything will be better
when the milk comes in. On what kind of truck, you wonder.
They tell you that, if you are experiencing pain of the nipples,
it s because Baby isn t latched on properly. How the latch has to
be just right for proper breastfeeding. You don t like the sounds
of that. You don t like how latch sounds like something that s suc-
tioned on and might never come oT again. You think of lamprey
eels and leeches. Notice how everything starts with an l.
When the milk comes in, it comes in on a semitrailer. There are
even marbles of milk under the surface of skin in your armpits,
TALES FROM THE BREAST 241
hard as glass and painful to the touch. Your breasts are as solid as
concrete balls, and the pressure of milk is so great that the veins
around the nipple are swollen, bulging. Like the stuT of horror
movies, they are ridged, expanded to the point of blood-splatter
explosion.
Feel this, feel how hard my breasts are, I grit my teeth.
Oh my god!
It hurts, I whisper.
Oh my god. He is horriWed. Not with me, but at me.
Can you suck them a little, so they re not so full? I can t go to
sleep.
What! He looks at me like I ve asked him to suck from a vial
of cobra venom.
Could you please suck some out? It doesn t taste bad. I tried
some. It s like sugar water or something.
Uh, I don t think so. It s so . . . incestuous.
We re not blood relations, we re married, for god s sake. How
can it be incestuous? Don t be so weird about it. Please! It s very
painful.
I m sorry. I just can t. Clicks oT the lamp and turns over to
sleep.
Advantages also exist for you, the nursing mother . . . it is easy for you
to lose weight without dieting and regain your shape sooner.
(page 176)
You look like you re still pregnant, he jokes. Are you sure
there isn t another one still in there?
Just fuck oT, okay?
Your belly has a loose fold of skin and fat that impedes your
vision of your pubic hair. You have a beauty mark on your lower
abdomen you haven t seen for Wve years. You wonder if you
would have had a better chance at being slimmer if you had
breastfed the Wrst child. There is a dark stain that runs vertically
over the skin of your belly, from the pubic mound, over the belly
242 WITPUNK
button and almost in line with the bottom of your breasts.
Perversely, you imagined it to be the marker for the doctor to slice
if the delivery had gone bad. The stain isn t going away and you
don t really care because, what with the Xab and all, it doesn t
much make a diTerence. You are hungry all the time from pro-
ducing breastmilk and eat three times as much as you normally
would; therefore, you don t lose weight at all, you just don t gain
on top of the residual fat you have already achieved.
You should eat as much as you want, your mother-in-law
says. She spoons another eggplant on to your plate and your part-
ner spoons his over as well. The baby starts to wail from the bed-
room, and your mother-in-law rushes to pick her up.
Don t cry, you hear her say, Breastmilk is coming right
away.
You want to yell down the hall, that you have a name and that
it isn t Breastmilk.
You eat the eggplants.
The hormone prolactin, which causes the secretion of milk, helps you to
feel motherly.
(page 176)
Just how long can the pain last, you ask yourself. It is the eleventh
day of nipple torture and maternal hell. You phone a friend and
complain about the pain, the endless pain. Your friend says that
some people experience so much pleasure from breastfeeding that
they have orgasms. You tell your friend that if that was the case,
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
