Massive nipples5/30/2023 But who says that you can't live in both worlds? Some mothers I knew wore bras to bed because they didn't want to leak on the mattress - or their husbands. I lived in the world of womanhood for years, and now I was a mother. He was shut down and hungover I was absorbed with my baby. I couldn't remember if I'd slept with M.'s father in the weeks before he'd left for good. Perhaps, after undressing, I could open my closet, pull out an umbrella, and hand it to him: "You might need this. If I slept with a man as a nursing mom, my breasts would rain on him. Before motherhood, when a man put his lips around my nipple, it made my body rain - not a light sprinkle, either. My breasts had always been one of the most sensual parts of me. But they were all the same: white men in their forties, in search of sweet breast milk. I kept scrolling through the sites that Google brought up there had to be something. Men were looking for "mature women willing to breastfeed me." One of the first things that came up, however, was a site called. I hoped to come across a first-person essay in Redbook about a mother's deep feelings, something to inspire me as I worked. Because recently, while writing this essay, I turned to my computer to do some research, in hopes of finding a thoughtful example of what it means to balance these two acts. If I had, I never would have gone on a date. I'm grateful that back then I did not sit down at my computer and type lactating and dating into Google. Still, noticing men in the hallway was not the same as dating them. stuffed animals and called her "Little Guacamole" - and the UPS man, who rolled his packages past me. As the months passed, I started to notice men: our building manager - who gave M. "But look at you!" my girlfriends (who were all married) said to me. Not only was I a 29-year-old single mom with dishes in the sink and baby clothes with stains I'd never actually scrub out, but I breastfed "on demand." How in the world could I even think about hooking up with some hot man when my cha-chas were making milk? But it wasn't long after her father split town - as M.'s first birthday approached without a sign from him, I knew he wasn't coming back - that friends started to ask me, "When are you going to get back out there?"Īs in date? They had to be kidding. Not only did nursing nourish M., it nourished me. lay on my chest, her tiny hands kneading my breasts, milk flowing from me, I knew that I could do this alone. No matter how alone I felt, those times that M. Nursing had the same soothing effect on my baby, no matter how hungry, agitated, red-faced and cranky she was at the start. It was the place where my milk could turn my anger into white, warm calmness. The very first thing I did, even before crying, was to sit down on the living room rug and nurse my daughter, M. This was a time when I believed that love would overcome anything. Our daughter was seven months old, and I'll never know for sure what put him over the edge. On Thanksgiving Day my boyfriend walked out the door.
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