Her Lumps…Her Lumps…Her "Lovely" Lady Lumps…

Define Mommy-envy. It’s when you think other mommies are doing a much better job at mothering than you are.

Which really sucks. Because you believe you’re busting your ass going all-out at trying to be the best mother in the world, setbacks notwithstanding. And since when has this become a competition anyway? Or so, you try to tell yourself.

I was godmother to Irene’s Eyla over the weekend. And I spent half the time ogling the teensy five-month-old princess who was wetly gumming a soft hand-toy and ogling everyone back with her wide-mouth grin.

After the ceremony, a mommy-group of fellow godparents eventually formed with Drixie, Eunice and myself, and we talked shop about milk formula; which ones were the cheapest, which ones our kids could stomach. And diapers. Oh diapers, that disposable budget drain!

Eventually the talk came around to breastfeeding, something I was entirely confident about. Or so I thought. Imagine my shock when Eunice shared about expressing an average of 24 ounces a day when she was breastfeeding her Mishka. Irene waltz over to our table just then and bragged of her 20 ounces a day, over and above the volume she squirts out to her exclusively-breastfed daughter.

I was still attempting to process this information, when Drixie (this sage mother of four) turned her long-suffering gaze to me, and sighed, “you’re lucky you don’t have this problem.”

And they all had this cringing look of remembrance of the fever-ache of ready-to-burst milk ducts, that I had to swallow my modest claim to the 8 - 12 ounces that I painstakingly pump out at work.

Saddest of all was the realization that these were friends who were not trying to put me and my efforts down at all. They were practically congratulating me on my pain-free breastfeeding, while they tottered around with their crippling D-cups, leaking milk. I looked down at my modest-B’s, and sighed. And I thought I had the nursing veteran-ship down to a tee.

Define Mammary-envy.

12/04/06