I don't want you to breast-feed!
Yes, my ex-husband actually said this exact sentence - and not only once, he said it several times.
(If you want to read the whole story, please search for #pandorasbox .)
The whole topic became really important to him the bigger my belly grew.
I really wanted to breast-feed because for me this is the most natural and healthy way of nourishing a baby. But since his ex-girl-friend had decided not to breast-feed their child (because she wanted and now also had to go back to work when her girl was 3 months old), he knew 1,000 reasons why I shouldn't do it either.
He had always been intimidating, but the closer I came to becoming a mom, the more I got self-confident - at least for everything that concerned my daughter. So, I insisted on breast-feeding, trying to show him all the articles I found about the benefits of breast-milk.
But he had a much better reason for being completely anti-breast-feeding:
"You are already not available for me right now. I want this to change when the baby is here. If you breast-feed, your boobs will still be out of order. I won't accept that."
Besides the fact, that I felt completely grossed out by him - due to his behaviour and everything he had done to me and therewith to our baby - my breasts had been feeling hyper-sensitive and sore. He was scared that this would get worse and that this would be the reason for me to not let him touch me.
"...I also think that it is simply gross!"
There it was; the sentence that should make me feel embarrassed and guilty each-time I tried to breast-feed my little girl.
(This is my daughter Anaïs kissing my tummy while I was 7 months pregnant with my twin boys.)
Dear Moms,
I had to learn that breast-feeding is something wonderful and definately nothing to be embarrassed about.
Our bodies can do wonders, if we only trust in ourselves. Don't let anyone manipulate your feelings and instincts.
Yes, I know, there are mothers that can't breast-feed. Well, to be honest with you, I am one of them. When my daughter was born, I tried to, but the demeaning stares of my husband did something to me that made it difficult to just relax and nourish. And since I didn't have a mid-wife or any other advisers, I had to feed her more and more formula and stopped breast-feeding after like 3 weeks.
When my twins were born, it was a whole different story, since they were extreme preemies (but I pumped milk for 7 weeks) and when I got my littlest kid, I never really found a calm moment. I beat myself up for it, until someone told me that all was good: my kids are healthy and happy, even though they only got breast-milk for some weeks.
And of course, there are moms that simply decide not to breast-feed at all and I don't judge them either, because I am sure that they have their reasons!
Dear Moms, we are all doing as much as we can and try to balance kid/s, career, house work and our lives - all at once.
Don't let others make you feel guilty, you are doing just fine!