Mama Trauma

When you're pregnant, your body is no longer your own. Not only has the creature growing inside you taken over like another sequel to the movie Aliens; but every sales clerk, taxi driver, train conductor and coworker feels perfectly comfortable asking about your digestive system, bathroom habits and the creature's movement patterns. All want to feel it kick; half of them lay hands on you as if they've invented faith healing. I thought my son's birth would limit this nonsense to his sleep habits, digestive system and bathroom habits. I was wrong. My breasts were now the province of every relative, friend and stranger. All the doctors, midwives, magazines and textbooks say the same thing: breast feeding is best for the baby and for the mother. You know all the arguments: nutrition, bonding, savings, portability, bigger breasts. Women I know still speak of the warm, loving feeling that flowed through them when their milk let down. One even admit