Life from pregnancy onwards: it's all fair game

I've told some of you the (now old) story of the woman at work who, when she saw me rinsing my pumping supplies in the ladies room, asked me "How old is your baby now?" I said, "He's 7 months" and she said "And you're still pumping? You're not going to be one of those women who breastfeeds their kid until he's three, are you?" I was impressed: I had never heard someone make the word "those" and "three" sound so dirty.


Suffice to say, my reply contained no expletives or rude gestures (not that she deserved such restraint), but more of the "Would it really bother you?" variety of reaction followed by awkward silence and then some more awkward silence as I realized that she believed my question to be rhetorical and she realized that it wasn't.


I've come to understand, since the moment I was widely-known to be pregnant (either through word-of-mouth at work or through the belly protruding later) that people have no hesitation about sharing unsolicited advice, opinions, or horrific stories with pregnant women and moms. For example, there was the woman who asked me when I was about 32 weeks pregnant, "How much weight have you gained?" And when I just stared at her blankly trying to think of a situation where that would ever be an appropriate question, she lost all frontal lobe function right before my eyes: "...because I hope you're not going to be one of those women who gain 40 pounds!" You can bet my response was a shrug and a smile - this woman is easily 1/3 of my non-pregnant weight - to tell her I hit 196 would probably send her into some type of frothy convulsions. Come to think of it, it may have been worth it.


The truth is, I was one of those women - I proudly gained 46 pounds and have lost 40 of those pounds since the birth of my child. I may also be one of those women who breastfeed my child until he is three. Who is to say? And who does it bother? Both the Canadian and British pediatric associations recommend breastfeeding until age 2. The American Medical Association only goes so far as to recommend nursing for 1 year (but they're off the hook as far as I'm concerned: they're probably just happy if you do not feed your child McDonald's before s/he has teeth). My friend Monica and I would be happy, I'm sure, to discuss the benefits of extended breastfeeding at length to any interested parties.


My friend Jenn and I were talking about this and I think she put it best: people who have a problem with nursing older babies/toddlers probably imagine a scenario where the child nurses every two hours like a newborn and relies on breastfeeding for a majority of their nutrition. That's not it at all. As Jenn rightly pointed out, at this point, nursing Owen isn't really about his nutrition anymore, although of course it is good for him; it's about snuggles and comfort. Sure, it has been shown to boost immunity even beyond 1 year, and it has been correlated with improved social skills and higher IQ - but any of these things could also be correlated with being raised by fabulous hippie parents who, coincidentally, are also more prone to extended breastfeeding. For Owen, it's a way to settle down after an active day at school with his friends, and to transition in and out of naps and nighttime. For me, it's time I get snuggles with an increasingly active boy. I love the way he giggles and says "yum yum" when I ask him if he wants nursies. It's things like this that make me relate - somewhat - to the women who nurse their kids well past their first math exam.


Even in my open-minded world I have gotten the occasional well-meaning query about how long I plan to nurse Owen, and to that I can only offer this deal: I will stop nursing Owen sometime between now and when he prefers his breastmilk chilled in a wine glass. Deal?