by Emma Riley Sutton

Created on: March 26, 2008   Last Updated: June 25, 2008

The decision to breastfeed my baby was made about thirty minutes after I found out I was pregnant. I would have made it sooner, but I was too busy telling my baby loved he or she was to think about anything else. The only way my husband could have been more supportive of my choice was if he had been able to produce breast milk and nurse our baby himself. It made complete and total sense to us. Breast milk is natural. It is free. It is easier - no powders to mix and containers to throw away. It was always ready and the right temperature. The bonding is wonderful. Breastfed babies are healthier, smarter, better adjusted. The list goes on and on. We felt it was the only way to do it. We had no idea how we would be judged by our decision. And, how mean people can be about it.

It started the day our baby was born. The visitors started pouring in. Our daughter wasn't even six hours old, so nursing was very new to the three of us - me, our daughter, and my husband. All of our visitors were polite and considerate enough to leave the room when it was time to nurse. They, too, understood it was new to us. That was true enough until until my brother-in-law and his wife came to visit.

I explained it was time to nurse her (we still call it "getting groceries'). I expected them to excuse themselves and let us get 'set up.' Everyone else had and my husband would fetch them from the hallway once my daughter and I got started. They didn't offer to leave, so I covered myself up and we started nursing. Obviously, we were new to this, so my husband held up a blanket so I wouldn't be exposed and also be able to use to hands.

Oh, dear God! You would have thought I stripped naked and did a provocative dance in the middle of church. It wasn't so much what they said, but how they said it...

"I see you decided to nurse," my brother-in-law said.

"That can't be sanitary," his wife added.

The tone of disgust was obvious.

"Are you going to breastfeed?" My husband asked. My sister-in-law was seven months pregnant.

"No." She said it like nursing was the worst thing in the world. "I don't want to get that attached it."

Yes. She actually said that. There are two things wrong with her statement. First of all, she was pregnant; you are already pretty attached to your baby - this thing called an umbilical cord. The second thing is she called her son (they already knew the sex) "it." I thought maybe the epidural had messed with my hearing or my brain, but my husband confirmed it after they left.

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