the glamour of breastfeeding?

There has been a lot of chatter about television recently. None for kids before age two? One hour a day or less for the under fives? We are not a household of television watchers, the kids only watch on weekends and Geekydaddy and I watch maybe 2-3 hrs a week. I watch far less TV here in the US than when I lived back home, mainly because so much of it is rubbish, but also because I don't find I have time to get into new shows, and all my old favourites went off the air. We never joined the TiVo/DVR revolution, and still have a regular old fashioned cathode ray tube TV. We don't even subscribe to cable, we canceled it to pay for our iphones! With so many TV shows now available for free through various outlets over the internet it is possible to pick and choose a few things to indulge in, so we have picked up a couple of shows

One of then is "Dollhouse". By Joss Whedon, of whom I've been a fan since falling in love with the improbably named "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series. The premise of the show is that a secret organization has enslaved a fleet of attractive men and women, "dolls" and brainwashed them in order to implant new personalities and ship them out on assignments to high paying clients.

The episode we watched last night involved Eliza Dushku, who plays one of the dolls, being implanted with the personality of a new mother, complete with the ability to lactate. I give great credit to the show for showing a woman nursing a baby, and for the storyline itself, which explored the power of the maternal instinct to protect a child, but I had to laugh as I watched lovely Eliza rise, smiling and looking well rested, from her luxurious satin sheets, to pull on a very expensive looking lacy peignoir over a matching negligee, and settle down to nurse her smiling, cooing baby boy.

Geekydaddy and I recalled how glamourous I was back when I was nursing the geekykids. I wore a huge T shirt to bed over the top of a nursing bra which I stuffed with ziploc bags of frozen lima beans to prevent the engorgement that plagued me. These veggies would often have been frozen and rethawed several times, and combined with the cabbage leaves I also padded the bra with, gave off a smell rather like a week old bin.

I had a tatty flannel robe that I would throw on to nurse, covered with milk stains and baby spit up. And to top it off I'd put on a pair of thick woolly socks, as my feet tended to get cold as I sat with the babies. I was not a glamourous sight! Though it is wonderful to see a show promote breast feeding, some of the audience may be in for a rude awakening when they or their partner actually try the real, non Hollywood version!

The show made me realize that even though my last baby stopped nursing quite some time ago, I still have not reverted to my pre pregnancy nightwear. I used to be quite fond of romantic looking frivolous garments. My birthday is coming up, so maybe I'll send Geekydaddy off shopping!

What about you? Have you maintained your nightwear standards though pregnancy, nursing and child rearing?