TALES FROM THE BREASTPUMP: THE FIRST TIME

Using a pump to get milk out of your boobs is absolutely ridiculous.  Think about it: You plug in a machine, put cones on top of your chest, and watch as a body part plummets into a plastic tunnel.  And to top it all off  (pun intended) milk comes flying out and drips into a bottle.  So. Freaking. Bizarre.

I want to meet the woman that says she enjoys pumping.  Tell me you've bonded with your breastpump and I'll give you a great referral to a psychologist.  The only reason women do this is to keep the milk flowing.  Supply and demand: The more we are milked, the more we provide.  Just like a cow's utters.  What's hotter than a farm animal?

I remember being 4 weeks post delivery and only breastfeeding.  No big deal here folks; just trying to keep an infant alive solely on my ability to breastfeed.  Zero pressure.  I was using this amazing product called "Milkies" and catching the overflow from one boob while Little Miss P nursed the other boob.

I would then store the 1 ounce of drips I collected in the fridge.  After a day I would get to about 4 ounces.  I was doing this because I was terrified of the machine that was sitting in my closet.  It would whisper as I walked by, taunting me.  You know the Sex and The City episode where Miranda walks by the man in the Hot Dog suit and he whispers "eat me"  just to her? She ignores him at first and then finally gives in and confronts him?  Well I had a similar relationship with my pump except it whispered "I'm not going away" and never turned me on sexually.

The time eventually came when I wanted freedom more than the Milking and the "Milkies" no longer cut the mustard.  I couldn't drip enough on the non-nursed boob to make a bottle anymore.  So I called my older sister on Skype to walk me through the pumping preparation.  I called her back 4 times to make sure I had the right end of one piece going into the right end of another.  Mom was with me and seeing how nervous I was suggested I have a couple sips of wine first.  (God love her.)  I chug a half glass and go into the bedroom with the Pump.  I get all set up and put the two cones over my boobs.  Crap.  What part of my body should I use to turn ON the pump if both hands are grasping the plastic cones, pray tell?  I give up and go back out to the living room to call Sis again.  Mom laughs out loud.  Sissy: "Try holding the cones up with your forearm while you turn the Pump on with your other hand. Just make sure you don't turn it up too high or it will hurt. " Me: "Hell No."
She sighs and suggests I try one boob at a time.  Deal.  I go back into the bedroom, head sunk low, wondering when the humiliation will stop and if I will ever be a normally functioning female again.
I put one cone to breast, take a deep breath, and reach for the on switch.  Oh God.  I turn it a quarter of an inch to the right and the thing explodes with noise.  I jump back and detach.  Why is it yelling at me!?  I try it again with my eyes closed and  feel my entire boob lurch forward and retreat in a rhythmic sort of way.  It sucked...literally and figuratively.  I open one eye and look down.  Um, who invited the Long Nipple Tribe to this party?

You can expect your cute little dimes to turn into ugly half dollars inside those plastic cones..  But at least I got to go to the grocery store with my own boobs tucked inside a nursing bra and not attached to my daughters lips, right?  Yes freedom does have its price.  And I hope pumping is something you come to terms with if you decide to nurse.  Overtime it becomes old hat.  I even started calling mine "Priscilla the Pump Mate" ; not because we bonded but because we spent so much time together.  I carried her everywhere I went (Yea, my pump was female, so what?).  When I turned her on she would groan over and over again:  "Feed Me Feed Me Feed Me" as the suction went in and out.  In retrospect my pump went from an annoying whisper to yelling at me to a repetitive drone.   Sounds like a bad marriage.  Maybe you'll get more lucky and have a male Pump Mate with a raspy voice coaxing you on with something like "This is so hot, This is so sexy, God you turn me on" ..... but then he'd be one lying son of a you know what.


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