Welp. I finally did it. I finally tasted my breast milk.
I refuse to be embarrassed by this.
Nobody put me up to this, neither was it my intention to do a taste test today. No, it was more of a spontaneous impulse. You see, there’s little that a woman can do to control when her milk “comes in.” She could be reading a book, she could be stopped at a red light, she could be folding her laundry, etc. But I? This morning, I was headed towards the shower when my milk “came in.”
You know what I mean when I say “headed towards the shower,” right? That means there wasn’t a thread of cotton around to stop and absorb the water show. Any woman in my situation would have felt like this:
What could I do but try and catch my milk?! It goes everywhere!
In a matter of seconds, I looked down and found myself, right hand cupped, holding at least a half teaspoon of breast milk. What I did next was as instinctual as wiping your hands on your jeans when there’s no paper towels left in a public restroom. You just act quickly. Rather than making an effort to dispose of it, I just slurped it down real quick.
I bet your wondering what I’m going to say next.
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Sugar water. It tastes like a mixture of sugar water and 1% milk. It was sweet! Which obviously explains why babies are so sweet. Mystery solved.
One more thing that I’ve been meaning to address: men readily admit that they’ll never understand the pain of natural childbirth. True. But you’ll also never know the sensation of milk “coming in.” So I’m going to tell you what that’s like.
Have you ever hit your funny bone? You know how everything stops and you stand there, uncomfortable, as that weird pain reverberates for a while? Well, it’s like hitting your funny bone in your boobs. It’s not excruciating, but it lingers and it’s weird.
Heard it’s good for pink eye. Just FYI
🙂
I tried my breast milk too…I dripped some on my wrist to make sure it wasn’t too hot (it was in a bottle so hubby could feed Ty) and then licked it off. Well, after we switched to formula I did the same thing without thinking. Ewwww. Breast milk tasted nice…formula was horrible!!!!
I think let down feels like someone squeezing my breasts with a bunch of tiny spikes. I must say that even after over 8 total years of nursing, I have never tasted my milk though, LOL. Thanks for doing it so I don’t have to! : )
Brave to admit…but not weird…I wanted to know what was going into my babes! It was excruciating for me, pretty crazy to watch too! Men have no idea how lucky they are that they don’t have to go through what we go through.
I bet most have tasted. They are just not as forthcoming and unembarrassed by life’s wonders as you are.
Do you think breast-fed babies find sweets more comforting later in life?
I can’t speak for everyone, and my mom wasn’t able to breast feed me for too terribly long, but I sure do find sweets comforting at the age of 29.
I’m sure you are comforted by the fact that apparently every other mother out there has done this once before. 😛