The Fish Pond

Weaning: I Can't Tell If the Fat Lady has Sung or Not

Okay, so, BigDaddyFish and I went away three weeks ago, and Friday the 20th was the last time I nursed Nemo. He was really upset about us going away, so I lay down with him on my bed and snuggled him up close and nursed him until he fell into that drunken, post-nurse deep sleep. I picked him up and held him close, no easy feat as he's grown and I haven't and I'm not overly big to begin with and he's more than half my size at 2 years old, but I held him close and breathed in the smell of the top of his head, kissed him, and tucked him into his crib. Then BDF and I left for the trip. And Nemo did fine while we were gone.

When we got back, he asked to nurse that day, but was easily distracted by the presents we brought, and then he fell asleep that night in his high chair. I thought "Oh, yay, this went great! I am a weaning Diva!" because I am a total moron. The next night, though, when he didn't fall asleep in his high chair and I had to put him to bed because BDF couldn't, it was awful. He cried and cried. He begged for nummies. I snuggled up with him and gave him hugs and kisses and a sippy cup of water and just loved on him, but it ended with both of us in tears until he finally fell asleep.

I told myself it would get better. In time, he'd get used to it. After all, that's what happened when we forcibly evicted Sunny just shy of age 2. She asked a couple of times, then that was it. But not my poor Nemo.

He has asked every day of the three weeks, save two, and one of those he asked to just see them instead of nursing (and I respectfully declined to acquiesce to his request). And the past few days he's been sick. He's got a slight fever, and a sore throat, and a runny nose, and he wants his nummies. Saturday BDF and I went out for a quick date, just a decent dinner in peace and quiet (so we went to a pool hall, because that's quiet to us) to cap off a particularly stressful week, and Nemo cried and asked to nurse. Three weeks of no nursing, but I've still got milk, because it let down, and I cried. Superbabysitter told us to just go, and said he fell asleep pretty much right after we left. When we went upstairs to go to bed, I moved Nemo from our bed to his crib (which is just at the foot of the bed anyway) and he stirred and started to whimper a bit about the covers, and when I tucked his blanket in around his shoulders he mumbled "Thanks, Mom." My milk let down again. He's still sick, and the thought of at least pumping and giving him whatever I can pump has crossed my mind. The thought of nursing him crossed my mind, too, and I wondered again why the heck I wanted to wean him in the first place. Am I evil and selfish? What's wrong with nursing til age 3? He gets so much from it, why can't I give that to him? Then I remembered the pinches, the bites, the wrestling matches, the yanking on me, the trying to play with one nipple while he nursed from the other, and I felt less guilty. Not guiltless, but less guilty.

I've given him plenty of love, of cuddling and hugs and kisses and all his favorite things. We've tried to replace the closeness he got from nursing with other loving activities that don't involve my breasts. I've been covering up when he's around, not showering with him (and let me tell you, I never thought it'd be such a delight to shower ALL BY MYSELF), not changing when he's in the room. When I put him to bed, I lay him down in our bed and lay with him spooned in front of me, and I rub his back or put my arm around him and rub his tummy, hoping that will give him the skin to skin contact that he needs. One day I know he won't want me anywhere near him, and I'll miss these days. But it is oh so hard sometimes to remain resolute. I guess that's why they call weaning a process.

Transitions

I never intended to have a family bed. To the best of my knowledge, I never, ever slept with my parents, and I fully intended that my babies would spend a short amount of time in my room in a bassinet and then transition to their own cribs in their own rooms when they outgrew the bassinet. (I also never intended to have four kids, so the own rooms thing worked well.)

Everything went according to plan until Trout was three months old, when she developed RSV. We spent three days not sleeping at all, just staying up all night staring at her to make sure she kept breathing. Once she recovered, I went back to putting her to sleep in the crib, but BigDaddyFish had a little Daddy Freakout and decided he couldn't sleep with her so far away from us, so he went and got her and brought her to our bed. I argued against it for a while, but frankly it was easier to nurse, and she was a good kid to share a bed with - she pretty much stayed put all night long, no kicking or shoving. She shared our bed until she was 16 months old and we knew her brother was on his way.

The move from our bed and room to the crib in her own room was wrenching but thankfully over in a week. The first night she screamed and cried for three hours. BDF slept on the floor beside the crib so he could soothe her periodically and she could adjust to the crib before she was alone. The second night, she cried for 45 minutes, and then sat in the crib giving us the stinkeye every time we walked by the room to check on her for about four hours. The third night she cried maybe ten minutes, then went to sleep after about an hour. Within a week, BDF was out of her room and back in our bed and Trout was sleeping by herself. She didn't stay in the crib very long, because we needed the crib for her brother and we didn't want to kick her out of the crib when he was born. We were idiots, and in hindsight we should have just bought another crib. But we moved her to a toddler bed instead.

Then we had the two hour ritual of me reading book after book and then sitting beside her bed so she could fondle her favorite comfort object as she drifted off to sleep, my hair being that comfort object. After too many nights of me dozing off and waking with a crick in my neck three hours later, I wised up and bought her a doll with hair, and she learned to fondle it instead of me. She later got another doll with hair, which she still sleeps with every night.

Little Man was easy, because he really didn't do well sleeping with us. He helicopters around, wanders all over the place, and talks in his sleep. It didn't take us long at all to discover that we all slept better with him in the crib. By the time he had outgrown the bassinet we had finally relaxed about his birth circumstances, so the transition to the crib at about four months went smoothly.

Sunny was a champion nurser, so she slept with us for years. We started trying to make the transition to her own bed when she was just shy of two and we bought her a toddler bed. We set it up in the corner of our bedroom, and went through an agonizing six month process to get her actually moved to the bed and then the bed moved from our room to the room she shares with her sister. She was still nursing at the time for a part of it, though she had weaned down to once a day. BDF and I went on a trip just before her second birthday and through that we were able to cut her off and finally wean. She still tries to come to our bed at least one night a week, but now I'm able to promise her a sticker in the morning if she stays in her bed all night and that works.

Which brings us to Nemo. I have been trying desperately to get him weaned; I want my body back, after three full years of pregnancy and more than 70 months of nursing, but he has other ideas. I also want some sleep, and I don't think that's asking too much.

Nemo has been sleeping in our bed with us since he was born. It was easier to nurse, and really, we had no place to put him. We have a three bedroom townhouse. The house itself is huge, and we have a lot of living space, and the master bedroom is a good size. But the other two bedrooms are really small. Trout and Sunny are crammed into one room, Sunny still in her toddler bed, Trout in a twin bed, but with the windows in that room we can't really make any changes in there - the windows come down to within 24 inches of the floor. Beds can't go underneath them because my kids would find it rather too easy to jump through the window. Little Man is crammed into a bedroom little bigger than your average walk-in closet, with a closet that is only 6 inches deep for most of its width. At about age 1 I set the crib up at the foot of our bed, and we tried to get Nemo to sleep in it, but he decided it was baby prison rather than a comfy, cozy place to sleep, and he would scream til he puked. Crying it out, which I certainly would have considered, wasn't really an option because sooner or later, we had to come to our own room to sleep, and he'd just start back up where he left off. So back into our bed with us. No one has been getting much sleep because Nemo will wake up in the night and need us to help him get back to sleep, either through playing or through nursing, and he wanders all over the bed and kicks and shoves and is a lot stronger than his brother. I want my bed back to just me and my husband.

Over time, I've been putting him in the crib at other times than bedtime, just to get him used to it. I'd fold laundry on my bed while he played in the crib. A couple of times Superbabysitter was able to get him to go to sleep in the crib, though he really won't reveal his secrets as to how. I'd been asking BDF to put Nemo to bed, because if the Nummies were around he asked for them, but was okay without them if they weren't an option. Slowly, over a course of months, BDF worked on getting Nemo to sleep in the crib. And in a stroke of genius that only a dad would think of, I think, one night he gave Nemo the Gameboy with a Little Einsteins game in it, a game so easy that you really only have to push one button to make it do anything and Nemo can manage to play it well enough to keep it going. He kissed Nemo goodnight, layed him down in the crib, covered him up, and let him play the Gameboy til he fell asleep. And he did.

So now, a couple of nights a week my son sleeps through the night. Yes, he's two (yeah, he had a birthday this past weekend) and should have been doing it all along, but he'd wakeup in the night and wow - Nummies! Think I'll grab a snack! and sit up and smack me in the face (literally!) shouting "Mom! Mom! Nummies!" until I rolled over and ponied up. He doesn't do that now, because they aren't right there in his face. Some nights he'll get up and yell at us until one of us brings him into bed with us, but sometimes BDF is able to get him to lay back down and go back to sleep by rubbing his back and telling him to go back to sleep. We also discovered a deep affinity for glowsticks, so sometimes we mix it up with the Gameboy and give him a glowstick. Best of all, as long as I keep the girls covered up, I can put him to bed without him asking to nurse, provided he didn't nap too late during the day.

Now, I'm getting more sleep, though thanks to my husband, still not enough. But more than I used to. It's been so nice that BDF is now thinking more seriously about what we need to do in this economy to get moved to a bigger house, where Little Man and Nemo can share a room and the hormones girls can have their own rooms, because he's liking being able to snuggle his wife with something other than his foot since there's no kid in the way. His wife's kinda liking it, too.

Tell Us How You REALLY Feel

Yesterday was a particularly hard day here in the Fish Pond, and Sunny was at the root of all of it. She didn't want to wait for me to be ready to take the Christmas tree down and so she started pulling off the ornaments and stacking them in a bucket, which would be fine, except some of them are glass, that really thin glass more fragile than egg shells, and they broke. That wasn't enough for her, and she kept pulling ornaments off and putting them in the bucket, and somehow she threw the balance off on the tree, which was tall and skinny unlike our typical short and fat trees, causing the whole thing to come crashing down in a hail of flying needles and shards of glass. All told only a handful of ornaments broke, but Trout had a screaming crying meltdown because one of them was a hummingbird ornament that she likes. I think I can fix it most of the way; the wings broke off cleanly, and we found a big piece of the beak. We couldn't find a couple of smaller chips from the beak, but a sharpie should fix that up enough that it won't be noticable unless you are handling it. Thankfully, no one got cut or hurt from the tree falling over.

You'd think that'd be enough excitement for one day, but you'd be wrong.

Sunny had been begging me to take her to Trader Joe's, and we needed a bunch of stuff anyway, so I packed up her and Nemo and we went to Trader Joe's. I typically love to go there and the people there are so kind and friendly, but it was Sunday and it was crowded and Sunny was being a pill. Nemo was in the cart and their carts are kinda small, so I didn't put Sunny in the back of the cart like I do sometimes, and she had to walk. She kept trying to push the cart, and after a near miss or two of her crashing into other patrons I kept reminding her "Mommy pushes the cart, and Sunny walks next to Mommy." Over and over, that was my mantra. I had picked about three things and put them in the cart, and Sunny kept trying to pull and spin the cart, and we have documented that I AM NOT SMART about these things, and also documented my lack of height, so at one point I had to let go of the cart with both hands and stretch up to my tippy toes to reach something on the top shelf. You see this coming, right? One day I'll learn.

Sunny attempted to climb the side of the shopping cart and in doing so tipped it over sideways, on top of her legs. She screamed, Nemo screamed, I nearly passed out. One kind man helped us right the cart, out of which Nemo was attempting to climb as fast as he could but he was strapped in with the seat belt (THANK GOD I USE THE SEAT BELT) and he couldn't get out. I got him out quickly and he continued to scream while I looked him over, I honestly don't think he got hit with anything or hit himself on anything - I think it just scared the crap out of him (you and me both, kid). Sunny was bruised up on her legs, but nothing else, but we didn't really know that for a while because she had tights on and wouldn't let me pull them down to look. I sat on the floor in the middle of Trader Joe's meat department holding two screaming kids in my lap while no fewer than 15 people walked past me and didn't even look at me. Not a single person offered to help.

I did get them calmed down enough to finish the shopping, but I didn't stop shaking until a good hour later. Of course, maybe ten minutes later, deeper into the store, people started talking to the kids and flirting with them and being nice again. I sure could have used that help when they were hurt and scared and needed comforting.

When we got home it took a while to get everything unpacked and put away, and eventually it dawned on me that Nemo hadn't nursed since morning and I hadn't eaten anything but a carton of yogurt all day, so I made myself some quick oatmeal with bananas and sat down on the couch to inhale it snarf it eat it, and Nemo tried to climb up into my lap. I begged off so I could finish eating, and fortunately the grandparents were there to distract entertain him, so I actually was able to eat my oatmeal while it was still room temperature. When I was done I looked at Nemo and said "Do you want nummies?" and he practically pulled me off the couch in his effort to climb up me, shouting "YAY!"

I didn't know he knew that word, but it was the nicest part of the day. Guess he won't be weaning any time soon.

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Don't forget about my contest - you have until tomorrow evening to make your guesses. No one is anywhere close yet.

And the List of Idiots Keeps Getting Longer - A Message to YouTube

It seems it wasn't bad enough that Applebee's, Facebook, and Bill Maher publicly and vocally oppose public breastfeeding. YouTube has done it, too. In their infinite wisdom, they have BANNED the League of Maternal Justice's breastfeeding video montage produced as part of the Great Virtual Breast Fest. Not flagged it, BANNED it. And they haven't offered any reason as to why they have banned video of photos of women doing something they are LEGALLY permitted to do. Somehow, it is permissible to post and share all kinds of video showing more skin than I show when I nurse my child in PRIVATE, much less publicly, but the League's video montage is BANNED. Oy.

Due to my somewhat incognito status, I can't post a video reply, but I am most certainly letting my fingers do their stuff. Please do what you can - go, tell YouTube that you support the rights of women to share photos of them doing what is natural, and legal, and not, in any way, obscene. Put up a post on your blog. The League of Maternal Justice is going to re-post their video montage with new music soon - please visit the site and comment in SUPPORT of their efforts.

There is still so much more work to do.

Scene at the Doctor's Office

Doctor: "Hello, FishyGirl. How are you feeling?"

FishyGirl: "Well, I have mastitis, so my breast hurts and I'm exhausted. Otherwise, good."

Doctor: "What makes you think you have mastitis?"

FishyGirl: "My breast hurts like crazy, I've been running a fever, I'm exhausted, and my breast is pink speckled. I think my milk supply is down on that side, too."

Doctor: "Have you had mastitis before?"

FishyGirl: "Yes, I think this is the fifth time."

Doctor: "Well, it sounds like you have a handle on these things, so why are you here?"

Doctor tells FishyGirl she would have just called in a prescription, and then writes a script for a very grumpy FishyGirl, who then had to take it to the grocery store to get it filled while she shopped with the rest of the last-minute people for an hour and a half. Just what you want to do the night before Thanksgiving when you are exhausted and your breast hurts, made worse by bureaucratic idiots who could have solved the problem a day earlier at far less expense and no wasted time.

A Few Words About Mastitis

If you are breastfeeding, and you start feeling like you have been shot with a shotgun in your breast, and you are exhausted as though you were doing hard physical labor, like digging ditches or working landscaping for Satan who absolutely DOES NOT want LAVA rocks, or something, then get thee to the doctor ASAP because you have mastitis and it is not something to screw around with. You may or may not have a fever. You may or may not have red or pink streaks on your breast in the spot where it feels like you have been shot, and they may or may not be hot to the touch - if you want to punch your husband for just LOOKING at your breasts, let alone doing something completely egregious like, I dunno, BREATHING on them, they are infected.

And just so you know, right before you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner is NOT the time to get mastitis and have your doctor's office tell you when you call that they can fit you in tomorrow after 3 when you call today at 9am, like I did yesterday. I still don't have my antibiotics, and I am NOT happy. I have lost my cleaning time yesterday and probably most of today, too.

Sigh.

The Great Virtual Breast Fest -- Because Breasts Are For Feeding First

  I am proud today to step up and participate in the Great Virtual Breast Fest, sponsored by the League of Maternal Justice. I am tired of all the garbage associated with feeding our children the natural way, the way nature intended, just because we happen to be out and about and some people think we should be cloistered away in our bedrooms or, worse, in horrid public bathrooms. Unfortunately, those people seem to be a vocal minority. It's time we nursing mothers, and those who support them, become the Vocal Majority.

Here, in all our nursing glory, are Nemo and me, taken this morning as he had his morning nummies:

Oh, the horror! Oh, the indignity.

Yeah, whatever. I happen to think it's beautiful. I have breastfed all four of my children, for various lengths of time, based on how long they, and I, wanted to nurse. I cannot imagine staying in my house and going nowhere for the better part of the first year of each of their lives - who would have done the grocery shopping? The transport to and from school for the bigger kids? Was I supposed to tell Trout no she couldn't take ballet, tell Little Man he couldn't take lacrosse, tell Sunny she couldn't take gymnastics, because the baby might want to eat then?

It's people like Bill Maher, organizations like Facebook, with their prudish attitudes, that made it so that my sister thinks breastfeeding is icky, that have made some people think we should be relegated to feeding our children in bathrooms, sitting on toilets. If I have to do that, then they are welcome to join me, with their dinner, of course.

Breastfeeding is amazing. It is one of the most rewarding and pleasurable experiences of my life, when Nemo's not biting, that is. I am beyond grateful that I got to experience it, that I stuck it out when things got tough, which they do, because this is hard. It takes guts and determination and, sometimes, lots of support. If you are nursing or want to nurse, you can do it. It is wonderful, and you will love it. If you love someone who is trying to breastfeed, tell them they are doing a fantastic job. Be a cheerleader. If you see someone nursing in public, give them a smile, or a kind word of encouragement.

I support the work of the League of Maternal Justice, and I urge you to do the same. Put up your nursing pictures, or nurse live with a webcam. If you feel uncomfortable doing that, visit their site to get a copy of their Boob Montage, and put that up. Put up a button, like this:

Go to their site, view the Boob Montage on YouTube, post some comments. Raise your voice loud, so we can drown out the idiots.

The Wheels of Justice Sometimes Spin Slowly, But At Least They Are Spinning

Remember my post about idiots and breastfeeding, and in particular the woman who was denied extra time to pump during her medical boards? Yesterday an appeals court judge in Massachusetts granted her the extra time she requested, saying the accomodations that the board had proposed would still unfairly disadvantage the mother. Unfortunately, she was supposed to take the test earlier this week; the mother has postponed it until October. I wish her the best of luck, and am happy that she stuck to her guns.

On that note, two of my online friends (and favorite reads) have started the League of Maternal Justice, aimed at harnessing the power of the interwebs to fight for justice in matters that affect all mothers. Right now, they are specifically calling for any Facebook users to deactivate their accounts and to make sure to let Facebook know why. They have also announced the Great Virtual Breast Fest to take place on October 10 at 10am ET. Be sure to check out these initiatives and show your support. Cancel your accounts. Flash your boobs, whether you are nursing or not. Write a post. Put up a button. Go see Motherhood Uncensored for a great post about why she's doing this, and then do whatever you can to support the League. Together we are Superheroes.

There's also strength in numbers. My friend and senior editor over at Props and Pans, Izzy, is one of the voices involved in Moms Speak Up, a place where moms can speak out about all kinds of issues, from breastfeeding to the environment to consumer safety. Hop on over there and make sure to add your voice to the din.

In other news, a woman in Russia has delivered a 17-pound baby. Ouch. Even with the c-section, ouch. Can you imagine what her back felt like for the last month of her pregnancy?

Angi asked what disaster Sunny requested OxyClean for, and I'm glad to report that there was no disaster, at least, not then. She happened to be watching Nick Jr. so I could do some dishes and keep an eye on her so she didn't paper mache the bathroom with toilet paper dipped in toilet water (one of her favorite projects of late), and saw a commercial for it, so she asked me if we had any. My answer?

"Of course we do. We have 4 kids - it's a requirement." Isn't it?

Breastfeeding Brouha - No, It Isn't Funny

Recently, the act of public breastfeeding has come under attack from both Facebook and Bill Maher, and whoever oversees the medical board exams in Massachusetts has demonstrated an astounding lack of support for something the medical profession purports to support.

For those of you who have been busy folding laundry or hiking the Appalachian Trail or just trying to avoid news media, Facebook has not only removed photos of women breastfeeding their infants from their site, but they have banned at least one woman from the site altogether when she questioned why the photo was removed. Bill Maher, in his comments about lactivism and and an upcoming nurse-in due to an Applebee's restaurant in Kentucky requesting that a mother cover up when nursing her infant, compared public breastfeeding to public masturbation and said that the woman should have planned better or stayed home, and seemed incredulous that promoting breastfeeding, i.e. lactivism, is actually a cause for some people. In another act of outrageous stupidity, the organization that oversees the administration of medical boards has denied an MD/PHD candidate and nursing mother of a four-month-old any accomodation to pump her breasts during her day-long board exam. She has sued to have arrangements made for the test she is due to take next week.

Now, Facebook certainly has the right to choose its own content, and if they deem photos of a breastfeeding woman obscene, then so be it. This is my site, and if I deem references to Facebook obscene, so be it. What someone deems obscene is subjective, and we all the option of not looking at something that we deem obscene. Close your browser window, turn off the tv, avert your tender eyes; there is no need to call for the removal of the subject of your discomfort. I do have to question, though, why images of women in revealing bikinis are not deemed obscene, or the existence of hundreds of pro-anorexia groups on the site are not deemed obscene.

Bill Maher? Idiot. Clearly. Breasts are okay in public only for your enjoyment, and not for the purpose for which they exist? Come on. Comparing breastfeeding, something necessary to the sustinence of life, to masturbation, something antithetical to the sustinence of life, if you take a purely technical perpective (which I am only doing for the sake of argument, mind you), is patently absurd. And you can't tell me this is a man thing - I am surrounded by men supportive of breastfeeding. And Applebee's really fumbled the ball there. The woman shouldn't have been spoken to at all about what she was doing, and when told about the Kentucky law allowing women to breastfeed wherever and whenever they need to, the management of that restaurant should have been falling all over themselves to make their lactating customer comfortable. If someone was discomfited by it, they could have relocated the table of the Uncomfortable One so that they couldn't see what was going on, or provided a blanket to put over the head of the Uncomfortable One, not the baby. Again, avert your eyes if you don't like it - we do still have free will in this country.

As for the call to lactivism, these incidents are precisely why lactivism exists. Because sexualized images of breasts are so prevalent in this country that despite my breastfeeding 4 kids my own sister still thinks breastfeeding is "icky." That despite irrefutable evidence that breastfeeding is the healthiest way to feed your baby (for both mother and baby), most women still choose to bottle feed for no other reason than thinking breastfeeding is icky, and it is deemed something shameful by our ridiculous puritanical society. In Europe it is not shameful, and no one covers up. As my grandfather said in response to the Janet Jackson incident "Why is everyone so riled up? It's just a tit - seen one, seen 'em all." They're just tits, being used to feed babies. Not only is it not something shameful, it is a beautiful relationship, something that should be supported and encouraged as much as possible in this country, for the betterment of our own society. Healthier babies, healthier mothers, healthier society as a whole.

When I had my first job back in the late 80s, I worked in a children's shoe store. One evening a woman came in with a child in her arms, a large child, I'd say about 2 years old at the time, and the child was sleeping. So I thought. She asked me to fit shoes on the child while she held the child, which I thought was odd, but proceeded to measure the child's size. I was shocked when I realized that she was breastfeeding the child while I fit the child's shoes. My 17 year old self was ridiculously uncomfortable, in part because I had never been exposed to a breastfeeding child before, or if I had been it was a tiny baby, not a toddler. But I didn't refuse to help her, I didn't ask her to cover up, and I simply made sure I maintained eye contact with the mother. With age and maturity I've learned why it is so important to breastfeed, and I'm glad I didn't let my discomfort get in the way of letting that mother live her life.

As to whoever governs the medical boards (is it the AMA? Really, I'd like to know and write a letter to support that student/mother), it is absolutely ridiculous that an organization that governs the very health care providers to whom we entrust our quality of life won't make accomodations for this mother. I seem to recall the Hippocratic Oath including the line "Do no harm." Does this board not recognize that not allowing this woman to pump they are potentially doing harm to both the baby and her mother?

Those of use who choose to breastfeed and make the commitment to do so have an obligation to support and educate others about the benefits of breastfeeding*. We need to demonstrate that public breastfeeding is not shameful, that we need not half-suffocate our babies by covering them up, we need not take them to unsanitary places to eat. We need to do what it takes to support women to make the choice to breastfeed, by providing time and places for working mothers to pump, by providing information and help when needed. By averting our eyes if we really feel it's necessary, and by giving mothers a warm smile and thumbs up when we recognize that it's not.

*Please note that I do not condemn formula feeders. One of my children has been formula fed for some of her life. I recognize that the reasons women don't breastfeed are widely varied, and include some people who just can't for whatever reason. Women who feed their children formula are not demons who are poisoning their children by any stretch of the imagination. But our society as a whole needs an attitude adjustment in regard to how breastfeeding is viewed in our country.

Breastfeeding Support?

"I need to got to Target real quick before we leave. I need to get nursing pads."

"Can't you just use shop towels?"

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"Do we really need to stop now?"

"Yeah, of course. I don't have any now, and if we don't stop I'll leak all over the place, and that's embarrassing."

"I wouldn't be embarrassed."

"What? Sure you would. I would."

"I wouldn't. I support my lactating wife."