Springtime is a beautiful time to be on a farm. Yes, Ohio springs are brutal. The calendar says spring, but the weather will just not let go of winter. Nevertheless, life does go on in meaningful ways. Every day the countryside turns just a bit greener, the trees pop just a few more buds, and the baby horses on our farm just keep coming in birthing season. Nothing can pull you out of a springtime/winter-hanging on/corona blues funk like a brand-new baby foal nuzzling its mama for a feeding on a lush green hillside.

I feel a certain affinity with the nursing mares in the barns and fields of our farm for they, like me, are mammals. When I had my first child, I remember thinking “I am a mammal! I nurse my young!” It’s incredible to think about. We mammals -- bunnies, whales, horses, humans -- produce milk to feed our newborn babies. Watching a newborn foal struggle to its feet and instinctively find its way to nurse its mother is to believe in nature, survival, resiliency. When I was a new mother, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. Fumbling my newborn baby, Flora, to my breast, I was scared, excited, curious. But baby girl knew exactly what to do. Just out of the womb, she looked me straight in the eye and immediately started rooting around for that breast. More than a week overdue, the in-utero buffet was no longer cutting it. She. Was. Starving. She quickly found what she was looking for and started going to town. “Oh, my!” I thought. “This is how this goes!” 

A few days later I remember waking early one morning to a completely transformed bustline. Yes, over the course of 9 months a woman’s body goes through immense change and transformation. But this sudden, immediate switch for normal, pregnant boobs to -- BAM! --Porno Boobs was dramatic. And painful. Weepy, sleep-deprived and desperate, I pleaded with my husband, Father of the Year, to go to the drug store to pick up a breast pump I had reserved to rent. Eager to have something useful “to do,” off he went. 

For the next few hours I shuffled around, gingerly putting ice packs and cabbage leaves onto my swelling chest. Flora was getting increasingly frustrated. My breasts were so enormous and hard that it was torturous for us both. It was like nuzzling a hot, huge boulder. I felt like a Macy’s Day parade float, ready to levitate under my titanic tatas. “Where in the blazes is he with that bloody breast pump?” I cried.

Just when I thought he had skipped town, in walked Father of the Year. “Babe! I’m home!” he yelled triumphantly. He strode into the TV room, where Flora and I both were whimpering in frustration.

“I figured we were going to be spending more time at home now, so .... ta-da!” 

He plunked a very large television on the table in front of me. 

“I got us a new TV!” he exclaimed, as if he’d just gone out and felled a bison for dinner.

“Where the hell is my breast pump?!” 

“Oh ... I forgot about that.”

It’s a miracle I didn’t kill him. But I needed him to go get that breast pump, so I restrained myself. The rest of that afternoon was a biblical scene of crying, gnashing of teeth, and blaspheming.

 The breast pump came by the end of that day, without bloodshed, I am proud to say. 

Once I got over the learning curve of bleeding nipples, feeding schedules and wardrobe choices that include shirts with trap doors, I found that breast feeding is a natural, beautiful thing to do. Watching these mares and foals have impromptu feedings, whenever, wherever they need to, I find myself envying the ease and lack of weird, sexualizing that we human female mammals have to endure when feeding our young as God intended. These gals are pros. They get the job done efficiently, while grazing, taking in the sun, occasionally snapping their heads back to reprimand a youngin’ getting too aggressive. My mind goes back to some awkward times I had to endure when simply trying to feed my baby. 

When my beautiful child was about two months old, we went on a trip to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Father of the Year was thrilled to be back in his college town with his new little family and I was thrilled to be out of the house. There we sat at a local seafood restaurant, barely anyone there, when Flora started getting fussy and hungry. I grabbed a young waitress, asking, “Hey, can I just sit in that room over there and breastfeed my baby?” I assumed she was on my side, ready to help out another woman. “Well, you can just use the bathroom,” she sniffed, then walked away. The next scene was one of me sobbing in a bathroom stall, my beautiful infant screaming in frustration because, being so upset myself, I couldn’t relax enough to nurse her. “Why in hell did I ask permission to feed my own child?” I muttered to myself. Rookie mistake.

What in blazes is wrong with people? Why can’t a human mother feed her babe naturally, just as those mares and foals on the hillside, wherever, whenever she wants or needs to? We are mammals. Mammals create milk to feed to their young. I am not Breastfeeding Mother of the Year by any means. I have dear friends who lapped me in the Breastfeeding Olympics, feeding their kids well into toddlerhood. For me, when a kid puts down his bologna sandwich and whines, “Mom, gimme some boob,” it’s time to pull the plug. But it’s all good. It’s not a contest. To each her own.

I see this new generation of young mothers and they are impressive in their use of technology. They are experts at bringing their pumps to work, disgorging before they go out for the night, and pumping discreetly in the corner of family gatherings. Breast pumps now are double-barreled, efficient marvels that young mothers can purchase, not send their doddering husbands out for rentals. Also, these moms have the benefit of Netflix for those late-night feedings.

 Which makes me think: I guess maybe Husband of the Year was right ... you do end up watching a lot more TV.