Guest post from RACS RANTS…could this be breastfeeding advice that works?!?!
When the G-man was born, I was intent on breastfeeding. I performed and did my duty through months of anxiety always believing I would never have enough. My sob story mirrors many mothers’ agonizing moments of pumping, which I fondly referred to as the “booty call” because I swear this is the sound that the Medela breast pump makes at 2 am. After 5 months of dutiful booty calls (and yet not much action), it was finally time to go to my first post-pregnancy trip to Vegas, and the boobs called it quits.
Through this experience, the best breastfeeding advice came from the Guatemalan mafia (a fond nickname we’ve created for the housekeeper and nanny). She of course told me “the milk of the breast is best.” In her country, formula is not quite as available as here in the good old USA. She then added you must eat the “Kuker”. Now not knowing what this “Kuker” was, she explained that it’s a special drink that we also “eat” here. I immediately assumed it was an herb that I had to get my hands on. She explained it would provide me with so much milk flow that I would have a surplus of breast milk that would fill my garage freezer to such an extent I would actually have to remove the vodka I also store there (for emergency cases only).
I scoured the internet and my baby books for something, anything, that could provide me more info on this wonder herb known as “Kuker”. I asked the other mommies, my mother, even called the lovely lactation specialists that fondle a breast likes it’s a piece of machinery. No one could offer me any answers. After a few days of searching, I realized that something was lost in translation. I implored again for more information from the Guatemalan mafia and she finally described the old man with a mustache and funny hat on the front of the package. I realized immediately then, the secret to breastfeeding, it was a clear as daylight, you must drink the Quaker.
Much of my experience as a mother has been like this, making motherhood more complicated then it really is, not enjoying the small things and finally realizing so much communication is lost in translation between a child and his mother. Then of course saying at the end of the day, you don’t have to be great, just good enough.
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