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I stopped breastfeeding before I started. I was too scared perhaps, too young maybe, too innocent and highly anxious. I remember when my milk came in, I went huge, bigger than the the pictures of Bardot or Monroe. Compared to me, Pamela Anderson was small. My breasts came in so large I was embarrassed. I never read about breasts my size in Doctor Spock, my home dictionary, the Bible? When you get pregnant no one tells you that you might be encumbered by breasts so large they are not pretty, not sexy. Large breasts filled with milk just hurt.

How to stop breastfeeding? Never start. Pure, easy, simple and likely to get you back to work before your 120 day leave runs out. Don't worry about the bra cups that pop open or a sore and crusty nipple. Why develop paranoia about your child just because he/she didn't get Mother's milk?

Think about the possibility of what could be in your own milk? How would one have milk tested. Are there web sites out there called submityourmilkandsee.com? If a woman eats asparagus sometimes the urine will smell, does asparagus change the taste of Mother's milk? Maybe that is why breastfed children spit up all the time. Could be the milk tastes of Cheerios or that last potato-pancake full of garlic.

Seriously, I will admit why I didn't start breastfeeding. Why I stopped. The breasts grew large then larger and my cleavage started at my neckline. I am not making this up, all true and very miserable. I felt fat and ugly and my Doctor came into the room and told me I could feed the whole nursery. I went for a cup of Earl Grey tea filled with sugar. Forget the honey, it wasn't a honey sort of moment when the Old Doc said that to me.

I remember waddling into the bathroom, so big I could barely see my toes. I had these sweet long legs and small hips and my stomach was already gone when the milk came in. So I opted out to dry it all up and escape the leers of men on the streets and gigantic support bras to compensate the unwanted weight. I opted to be able to rest Walden on my chest as I contemplated that quiet pond of Henry David Thoreau.

I took the potion they gave me, some kind of sweet sour thing that sent me into the bathroom for about 48 hours straight. I was sick, exhausted, and my hemorrhoid stitches pulled; but I fed her with this precious little glass bottle equipped with rubber nipple, and I fell in love with that girl like I've never loved a person since. I rubbed Mennen baby powder on her tiny feet and and guarded her eyes as the sun crossed the white sheets on the hospital bed. She sipped her milk and I sipped my tea. We shared the beginning of her life together.

I stopped breastfeeding before I started and I named my backpack Henry David and I took my girl for hikes in the high country of Colorado. We went up into the Gore Range and down the Peak's trail, we smelled pine sap as only it can smell near the Continental Divide. It was not the aroma of Mother's milk but we never missed out.

Learn more about this author, Barbara Mertus-Munyon.
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