The Performance

by Traci G. Perg, R.N.

This is my personal story about the most public breastfeeding situation I've ever been in. My son is a happy ten and a half month old boy who loves to nurse. He nurses on cue, currently he nurses between seven and nine times a day, and still nurses at night.

When he was a newborn, I thought he would never do anything except nurse! It seemed like he was latched on for at least ten hours a day. Consequently, I became very comfortable nursing in public. I've nursed in the car, in the mall, at work, in church (including in the communion line with a shawl draped over the baby), walking, and in more restaurants than I can remember. Except for a couple of rude comments, I've had no bad experiences. I thought that I couldn't possibly be embarrassed anymore, until last weekend, that is!

I am a registered nurse working Neonatal Intensive Care. We work closely with social services to help parents deal with this intensely stressful time in their lives. One of the social workers invited me to sing a song at a memorial service for an infant loss. I was honored to participate, but was a little worried about how I'd handle Aaron. At ten and a half months, he's in full blown separation anxiety, and whenever we're together he's not happy unless he's being held or worn in a sling.

Before the performance, I met with the pianist to rehearse. The rehearsal went well, and with twenty minutes to go, I went to nurse Aaron. He was very eager to nurse, nursed well, and appeared happy and content in our sling. With both my songs less than fifteen minutes into the program, I thought "Piece of cake."

The first song went well, Aaron snuggled up and leaned his head against my breast while I sang, and I felt very confident. During the reading that followed, however, he began to cry and fuss, pulling at my shirt and crying "Ba ba ba" which is code for "Feed me now, Mama!". I figured I had five to ten minutes, plenty of time to settle him down, so I hunkered down in the choir loft out of sight and gave him a side. He ate, calmed right down, detached and snuggled back in the sling, "Victory!" I thought. Then, just as the announcer asked me to come back on stage, he began to wail in earnest. Everyone in the church could hear "Ba ba ba!" then, more frantically "BA! BA! BA!"

Even though I've been doing this for ten and a half months, I felt terrified! Feed him in front of an audience of over a hundred people? ON STAGE?!

But, this is my son and I love him, so I took a deep breath, latched him on, pulled our sling up so nothing was showing, and walked out hoping that I looked more confident than I felt. The pianist looked at me and asked "Will you be okay?" in a hushed whisper. I shrugged and said "Maybe" and started to sing. Aaron settled down right away, and I began to feel less self-conscious. A few times I felt myself blush, but I just hugged him close and pretended that we were at home alone and singing one of his lullabies.

When the song was finished I made a grateful escape. After the service was over, I found the coordinator and apologized profusely for our unorthodox "performance" and she appeared genuinely confused. When she finally understood what I was embarrassed about, she was so surprised. Sitting right in the front row, she said she hadn't even known what he was doing. She assumed he was covered up in the sling because he fell asleep!