Is this like AA? My name is...? Okay, I'll bite. My name is Jayna and I am totally in love with lactating!!
I nursed my first child for almost 3 years, and I'm still going strong nursing my second. There is something so beautiful, so primal, so miraculous about being able to grow a living being, birth them from your body and nourish them. I'm in love with motherhood. It's so incredible to be able to nurture someone at the deepest level, mind, body and soul.
I love watching milk spray from my breasts. It's amazing to watch how far it can squirt and to see the pools puddle up beneath me as it drips down my body. It's this incredible visual reminder of what I can do, and what my body can do. You don't get to see the volume of milk leaving your body and entering another as you feed them, so I love the chance to watch my milk as it sprays and dribbles from my breasts. I love to watch my breasts fill with milk, becoming solid and rock hard. I love the comforting feel of density beneath my skin, knowing that my milk is building just ready and waiting for a cry of hunger. Even as my skin stretches and it becomes uncomfortablely full, I marvel at how my body is equipped to handle this and the innate intelligence that it has. I love to feel my breasts as they are filling, filling, filling to dangerously full levels - you know.... leakage prone levels :) "That is SO COOL!" is often one of the things I'm thinking to myself! It may not be poetic, but it gets the point across.
I use breastmilk for everything... of course, it's warm and delicious. It's sweet, creamy, filling and nutritious. It's full of antibodies, enzymes, probiotics, vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and pure energy. I'm so in awe of the nutritional profile of milk, how can one food be SO perfect and healthy? It doesn't just feed the body, it feeds the emotions, the heart, the mind, the spirit. How many foods do you know that can do that?! More than that, I use milk as a moisturizer, spraying it over my skin, or the children's skin to soothe away dry and chapped areas, I use it as lip balm to nourish dry lips and pretty little smiles, I have never found a better cure for anything eye related, baby eye "gunkies", itchy eyes, eye infections, etc. I've used it in little ears to sooth ear aches and ear infections in addition to soothing hunger and thirst. I've sprayed it on a baby's bottom at a diaper change to soothe rashy and inflammed skin with great results. I've even squirted milk up little noses (and mine!) to help with stuffiness, congestion and sinus problems. It's my go to choice for scratches, scrapes and boo-boos. I've used milk for just about everything. I'm in head over heels in love with milk. I feel like I can never wean or else I'd lose this amazing first-aid kit that I walk around with. Not to mention, milk is cost effective, always available, you never have to run to the store for more, it's always the perfect temperature, you never have to wash bottles or sanitize things, unless you choose to pump and use a bottle. It even comes in cute containers :)
And the taste!! Milk tastes so good. It's so warm and nurturing as it goes down. It's sweet and creamy on the tongue, changing flavors magically depending on what you've eaten. It even changes as the baby ages, creating exactly the right content to nourish your babe at exactly the right age. Newborn milk is different than 6 month old milk which is different than 1 year old milk and 2 year old milk and beyond. Milk intuitively knows to change when it's hot out, becoming more watery and hydrating, and when it's cold, becoming thicker and creamier, full of healthy fats to sustain warmth. Milk passes on your immune boosters, protecting all who drink it from the viruses and bugs that surround. Just the other day we all came down with a bug. I nursed the baby constantly, drank my own milk from my breasts as it was the only thing I could keep down and hand expressed milk into a glass for my big kid. We all healed within a day.
The only problem is my husband doesn't share my love of milk! He agrees it's best for babies, and he tolerates me covering myself and the children in milk at every opportunity, but he doesn't 'get' it. It's not a natural, in born love for him like it is for us, and milk is totally off limits during intimacy, sure the occasional spray sneaks out when I'm squeezed a little too roughly, but beyond that... nada. He can't wait for me to wean. I just wish he could understand WHY I love milk so much, why I want to nurse forever and ever. I long for everyone to experience the joys of nursing. My breasts tingle and ache at the cry of every child and baby, wanting to hush their tears away with milk. Every sadness and injustice in the world, I long to spray milk in its general direction. If everyone was nursed, if everyone got to experience this beautiful, peaceful connection between 2 souls during infancy and beyond, the world would be a happier place, would it not?
As my warm milk dribbles down my body I feel so passionate, so in touch with myself, my primal urges and insticts and the world. Does that make sense? Gosh, I probably sound crazy! Who loves milk this much?! Does anyone else feel this way?