TMI or what every woman needs to know? **Warning Guys... there's lots of talk of boobs. And not in the way you're thinking.**

So I was talking to the girl I work with the other day about pregnancy and babies. It was Gage's birthday and I was feeling nostalgic. She hasn't started her family yet... she's only 22 and still in school (that didn't stop me but whatev). She was asking questions about what it's like to be pregnant and give birth... all the gnarly stuff. I told her a little about it but I didn't want to scare her so I didn't get into the gory details. What I did was tell her something that no one ever told me. I may seem like something I should have known but... I didn't. I had not a clue that this would happen. Here's the long version.

I decided before Gage was born that I would not breastfeed him. Not very PC I realize but I was 19 and the whole breastfeeding is a beautiful experience thing, I wasn't sold. Fast forward to about Day 2 of being at home with my new baby and my rock hard boobs... seriously, they felt like boulders. The pain was something I had never experienced in my entire life... that is until I decided that the only way to get relief would be to let the baby get that shit out of there. Umm... if I thought it was painful before... well... what the hell did I know? He was like a little monster. He couldn't latch on so he would just search and search and shake his little head all over the place all the while milk is squirting all over his face, in his eyes, up his nose... everywhere but in his mouth. It only took a few weeks of that torture before I gave it up.

Now we're in the "milk is drying up and oh my god we're back to the boulders again" stage. Now, I'm not quite sure if I was just so damn tired that I never paid attention to my boobs when I tried to breastfeed him before but I'm guessing that has to be the case because what I discovered shortly into the drying up stage shocked and amazed me. About 2 days after I stopped nursing him I took a hot shower to try to get some relief. That's all my boob boulders needed. As soon as the water hit them they started squirting like Gage was there trying to latch on but the shock and amazement wasn't that there was still that much milk, it was where it was coming from that freaked me out.

Listen up people. Boobs are not like bottles. Bottles have a nipple that has one hole. Boobs have nipples that have all kinds of places for milk to shoot from. If you already knew that... good for you. Me? I went through pregnancy, labor, delivery, and a couple of weeks of breastfeeding before I figured it out. Clearly, I'm a little slow on the uptake but... well... I found out eventually and that's all that matters. Ok... so back to the issue at hand. Milk was flying everywhere. Left, right, up to the ceiling and down to the floor. If I remember correctly, and I'm pretty sure I do, I screamed for my mom. Of course she, being a mother of five, laughed at my idiocy and told me to get out of the shower.

So ladies, here are my only words of wisdom about being a mom. All of those flaps of skin on your nipples... those teeny tiny little flaps of skin. Milk is gonna come out of every single one of 'em.

You're welcome.