October 24 - Tuesday: Boobs

You've all heard of BDE, big dick energy. I'm pretty sure Jon Hamm invented it. Or maybe it was Pete Davidson. Who can remember? Well, I have BBE, big boob energy. Only I've always had itty bitty titties.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted big boobs. I just love them. I convinced my mom when I was a freshman in high school to let me go on birth control so that my boobs would grow. They didn't. It's funny she bought that and didn't read between the lines that I wanted to sleep with my high school boyfriend. Two things can be true. And I'm sure she knew both.

With both of my pregnancies and subsequent lactation periods, I finally got to experience the good life with the boobs of my dreams. With Stella, I breastfed for four months and continued pumping for another three. With Jude, I was never able to breastfeed. He hardly even fed by mouth. But I pumped as soon as he was born, throughout his life, and tragically long after he passed.

But, while Jude was here, I was so proud to be able to make milk to nourish him. They enriched it, turning 20 calories per ounce into 28, and mostly fed it to him through a tube in his stomach, but it was still my body nourishing him, mothering him in this small way.

Finally, there was something my stupid body could actually do for him. I did, and sometimes still do, blame myself for Jude's condition. Was it my genetics, my behavior during pregnancy, or perhaps my inadequate body that couldn't hold him in long enough? Alas, there was something my body could do: make milk.

And I was great at it. By the end, I would wake up and pump 20 ounces in the morning, often producing more than 50 ounces of liquid gold daily. My breasts were top performers. I had to buy a deep freezer to store all the milk I made. I nearly filled my eight cubic foot freezer and felt confident I'd be able to provide him with milk for his entire first year, a feat I didn't reach with Stella.

I suffered the company of so many creepy lactation specialists (and many kind ones that still wouldn't leave me alone). Initially, they told me I should pump eight times a day and, if I needed to, give myself a 5-hour window at night between pumps. It's fucking bananas. You might as well have been teaching the 15-year-old me who was begging for birth control the value of abstinence. It just doesn't work. During his short life, I regulated to 4 pumps a day.

I declared it no bra summer 2023—a massive shoutout to the Sommar Camisole that literally supported my boobs' and my mission. I'll post something in my handmades section dedicated to this beautiful pattern soon. But the short version is, it is a knit sewing pattern (non-sewists think stretchy) that has shrunk with me from my milky Ds down to my saggy Bs and every fullness in between. I love this pattern so much that I've made five and have another one cut in my sewing room. Sewing is a superpower and has allowed me to take back my body and feel empowered by all my curves and imperfections.

On one occasion, I was pumping in Jude's hospital room and forgot to attach the bottle to the flange. It took me minutes to realize Leftie was spraying milk all over me. Luckily, it happened to be the same day my godmother brought me a new hair dryer while visiting Jude and me in the hospital. In those days, especially, but consistently throughout my life, my Aunt Martha has always looked for ways big and small to make my life easier and better. I couldn't ask for a better aunt, godmother, and honorary grandparent to my children. Her generosity and love knows no bounds. It was a breast milk clothes (hair) dryer on this day, just when I needed it.

Jude deteriorated suddenly and died within days of going on ECMO. I was at my top lactation performance. My body knew nothing of my grief. Weaning off of lactation is hard enough in itself. It takes a long time, hurts, and makes you a hormonal mess. Weaning when the baby you're making milk for is gone is absolutely devastating.

I'd say it was my primary sadness trigger. Whenever I pumped or hand-expressed a clot in the shower, I wept. The boobs my husband and I loved now symbolized everything we had lost. As a result, I couldn't bear Trevor's touch and denied us both the physical comfort we could have used from one another.

It took about a month, but eventually, I weaned, and my breasts stopped producing milk. I was over the moon to have my tiny and familiar boobs back. Eventually, I'll upgrade. Breast cancer is rampant in women, including several in my family. It kills about 42K women per year in the US. I want my breast tissue out and implants in. I will eventually buy my BBE and hope they remind me of my sweet boy and how hard I worked to feed him.

After Jude's passing, my friend Lauren helped me research where to donate my freezer full of milk. She connected me with Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast. Everyone I worked with there was incredible. They treated me with the tenderness a bereaved mother requires and constantly reminded me my donation was a tremendous gift. It will nourish so many babies.

Ultimately, I donated 2,267 ounces of breast milk. To put that in perspective, that's over 17 gallons of milk or 90 bottles of wine (if wine were milk). It represents hours, days, weeks of my life. It is part of my body that I gave to my son, and ultimately, I am donating to babies in need. I'm very proud to be able to honor Jude in this significant way. In the lobby of the center hangs a quilt with a tree motif. Each leaf represents the baby of a bereaved parent. And now, my sweet boy Jude is a leaf on that tree.