Boobs

There has been something of a furore in the media recently about breast feeding. If I understand correctly, a media person said that he didn't object to women breast feeding their babies in public, but he thought it should be done discreetly. There have been thousands of comments made on Facebook. People strongly agreeing or disagreeing. Fair enough, it's good to have debate, so long as the babies get fed!

It got me thinking about these protuberances we women carry about on our chests. I am no expert in other peoples' breasts, but I do know mine pretty well.

When I was young my girlfriends and I really wanted breasts and we would scrunch up hankies and place them appropriately under our singlets and admire ourselves in the mirror. Eventually we would forget and start playing a game and the 'boobs' would slip and just become random lumps somewhere around our middles.

Not having breasts was great on reflection. I was a terrific skipper. Also one activity I really liked, that sounds corny now, was to jump up and down on steps and play 'elastics', a game that involved lots of jumping. As soon as my breasts started growing all those activities became uncomfortable so I stopped doing them.

My breasts grew and I needed a bra. Mutti went out and bought me one. It didn't fit because she bought the smallest size she could and my boobs, as soon as they started growing, were never small. They were round like apples. I should have been fitted professionally but wasn't, so my breasts were channelled into whatever my mother bought me and I was fairly uncomfortable a lot of the time.

I'm not boasting but my breasts were the sort of boobs that film stars aspire to and mainly achieve by having silicon implants. They were pert and round and when people said you know when you need a bra it's when you can hold a pencil under your breast, I had no idea what they were talking about. I surprisingly had a couple of women, even one of my teaching colleagues, grab my boobs, because they couldn't believe that they were absolutely real. And when I was in a female only gym where we went into the sauna nude, I had people check out my breasts and make comments. They were pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

It was nice having breasts that were admired. They looked good but I didn't like them because they were so damn uncomfortable. If we went to the beach and I wanted to tan my back, I had to dig holes for my breasts because they were so firm that I couldn't lie on my stomach.

When I was 20 I discovered my first lump. It turned out to be a benign fibroadenoma but it was the size of a golf ball when it was removed. The surgeon somehow damaged the surrounding nerves and the site has been constantly sore since then. Over the years I had more surgery to remove lumps, thankfully nothing cancerous.

When I became pregnant I thought my breasts would explode. I don't know anyone, even very flat chested women, who don't increase their bust size when they get pregnant. If your breasts are already sizeable, the increase is ridiculous.

When my beautiful girls were born I turned into a moo cow. My husband laughed and suggested we buy a stall or a rotorlactor - I could have competed with any jersey cow. When you feel your breasts fill up it is called 'let down'. Anything at all started my 'let down' response. It didn't need to be my baby announcing that she was hungry. It could be water running, bells ringing, a nice piece of music, other children calling out and whenever it happened it happened with gusto, or should I say gushto!

At one stage I had to go to the Queen Elizabeth hospital for mothers and babies because I had hideous mastitis and was exhausted and couldn't settle my firstborn. The lovely nurses give mothers a break. You use a breast pump to express enough milk for a baby's feed, the nurses send you to bed for a good night's sleep and they take care of the baby. The theory is good. My breasts never ran out of milk on the breast pump. I could have gone on indefinitely or until the rest of my body was a husk to blow away in the wind. The nurses were amazed. They had to tell me to stop.

To this day I am jealous when I see a mother cradling her baby breast feeding. I had so much milk that my babies couldn't cope with the flow. I got in touch with the Nursing Mothers' Association who gave all sorts of advice which left both my baby and me frustrated and crying. Finally I worked out what to do by myself. I had to hold the baby between my knees vertically so that gravity helped. It was cumbersome and I NEVER EVER fed in public because it looked awful, was terribly uncomfortable and I never looked serene. My babies thrived however. It was a relief when I decided to stop breast feeding after several months.

Years have passed and gravity has not been kind to my boobs. Remember the story about holding a pencil under your breast was the sign you need to wear a bra. I can now hold the whole pencil case plus a lunch box under my boobs. They are no longer perky, just big and as much a nuisance as they ever were. If I could afford it I would like to have augmentation surgery. Small sounds nice. Also I could probably buy a nice filmy bra rather than the industrial strength hardware I have to use to keep the 'girls' under control. Oh, dreams! But wouldn't it be loverly!

We come in all shapes and sizes. I just happen to come in a larger size and so do my boobs. Although I have had medical problems with my breasts over the years I haven't had the agony of experiencing something really serious so I shouldn't complain.