One of the other things the Gay Uncle discovered during his recent whirlwind tour of the homes of his parent (or soon-to-be parent) friends in the Mountain and Central time zones last week was a hidden cache. This is not one of the ordinary secret stashes he’s prone to finding–porn, weed, sex toys, chocolate–stuffed in the bottom of a filing cabinet, the top shelf of a bedroom closet, or crammed into a ceramic pig labeled DRIPPIN’S. Nope. This was a freezer full of breast milk. Well, not precisely full. That would imply a solid block of breast milk in the shape of the frozen foods compartment, sort of like a Rachel Whitread sculpture, but made out of boob juice. Rather, this was a collection of about 11,000 identical ZipLoc bags sluiced with liquid extruded from Gunc’s friend Victoria’s nipples. The Gay Uncle, exhibiting his usual sensitivity, shrieked when the door was opened and this exquisite maternal dairy collection was revealed. And though he knew it was wrong, his first response (aside from his evil mind conjuring the expression that begins “Why buy the cow…”) was to take the photo you now see featured up there in the left-hand corner. His next response was to ask Vicky–who had been regaling him with tales of the sorrows and pities of pumping–how long that amount of La Leche would last? “About five or six months,” she said. “And how long do you plan to nurse the baby?” She squinted. “Until he’s around one or so?” He did some quick calculations on his fingers. “Your baby is six months old now. So, if you stopped pumping today, you’d probably be fine. You have enough. You’re done!” Victoria nodded in that way parents often do when confronted with one of the Gay Uncle’s annoying approximations of a “solution”, and he got the impression that this freezer would continue to experience rounds of PUMP AND DUMP that his friend had described earlier. He closed the door (and his mouth) reminding himself that he’s never been one for things like keeping commodities in reserve, saving for a rainy day, or putting funds into a 401K. Perhaps, he thought, he should start his own PUMP AND DUMP process. But, he wondered, with what precious substance?
One Reply to “My Breast Friend”
Comments are closed.
Being, myself, a breastfeeding mother with a freezer full of milk (although not six months worth, damn!) I can understand your friend’s need to save every drop and have extra on hand. To me, at least, that extra in the freezer represents freedom–the freedom to go out and have a few drinks, the freedom to maybe go away for a short overnight stay somewhere with my husband. In short, frozen boob juice represents a chance to break out of the parenting bubble you talk about in your book. Also, and this goes back to the early days of breastfeeding, that stuff is liquid gold! It’s so hard to get even a few ounces at first that throwing it away (unless it’s unfit to serve, say after you’ve been doing some drinking) seems like sacrilege. The first time I had to literally pump and dump, as in dispose, I cried a little.