What they didn't tell you

...about breastfeeding.

Seriously, I get really pissed off by lactivists who feel they have the boob-given right to march up to another woman and comment on her way of nursing a child (yes, bottle feeding is nursing, too). And I think that the case in favor of breastfeeding has been overstated, if we are going purely on hard, cold study-based medical facts.

Yet I also want to beg all IFers out there to give breastfeeding a try. Why?

Because there's a chance that if you can get things going, you'll have a great time doing it. Yes, I'm talking about you, as a person, and not the baby. Fancy that!

Why? Because those hormones... they are sweet. It's like falling in love, after the perfect hot bath and a glass of the finest Cote du Rhone. I shit you not.

I know not everyone will be able to breastfeed: Apparently about 1/3 of PCOS gals have supply issues, and in some very difficult births (like, say, when you're birthing multiples), your body is so stressed that the pituitary goes pfft and doesn't get much, if any, milk flowing. But in most cases, with help from a good lactation consultant, you can do this. You can.

But there are going to be all sorts of dimwits and assclowns who will think they have the right to tell you it's not working. Everything--from a baby nursing constantly due to a growth spurt, to gas, to sore nipples, to the moon passing through Aquarius--will be interpreted as "oh, maybe you're not making enough milk." Screw that. If your kid's peeing, pooping, and growing, chances are that's not what's up.

But it's NOT an easy ride at first. I don't think I had a particularly shitty time, and it took us 11 weeks to really get the swing of things. At first, I was pumping around the clock: Bruiser latched but then completely couldn't manage the whole latching thing suddenly, and we used a bottle with expressed milk for the first three to four weeks. Advantages: My guy did a lot of feeding and cuddling and felt very, very good and needed. Disadvantages: Imagine a woman, weeping inconsolably over a hospital-grade pump at 3 AM while a teeny boy on her lap sobs in hunger.

After that, I thought I wouldn't make it to three months, forget six or even, gasp, a year.

But suddenly, Bruiser hit his due date and started loving the boob, albeit with a nipple shield to help him get a handle on things. This silicon sombrero became my constant accessory for the next two months. I always had one tucked in my cleavage, or sealed in a colostrum cup from my early pumping days in our diaper bag. It really sucked at night: my milk would carry the sombrero off on a slick Swanee River and Bruiser would get so discombobulated and pissed.

Then, all of a sudden, he decided he hated the thing and wanted to nurse commando. He went from needing the shield 80% of the time, to never using the confounded thing again in the space of a day. Babies are crazy that way: When they're ready, they'll do the impossible overnight.

Now, life is a bowl of cherries by comparison. Bruiser and I have a night routine going that gets me enough sleep not just to function but to actually think and be in a fairly decent mood. I'm losing weight.

And I'm loving the oxytocin high. Seriously, if they made this stuff in pill form, the world would be a much happier, mellower place.