Maxime Meiland under fire: ‘Oh, that holy grail of breast milk isn’t it…’ | Columns & Opinion

I get Maxime. I’m now six months pregnant and now and then wave a little lost at the liquor store in our village as I waddle past it. I miss being always involved ‘I now have a red wine, that will make you really happy!’ more than I had previously thought. Or the moment I’m cooking, my boyfriend gives me a kiss and asks: ‘Shall I pour you a nice glass of wine?’

evening person

The cheese boards with port. The long evenings with friends and family and then the table full of empty bottles: I can’t wait until the weather is allowed. I don’t drink a drop at the moment and also without any effort. No shaking hands or cranky when I see our full wine rack. It is mainly the fun that I miss. My pregnancy has made me so tired that I fall asleep on the couch sometime around 9pm. And I would really qualify myself as an evening person.

renounce

I have completely lost myself for half a year now. I know them, women who would like to be pregnant all their lives, that’s how good they feel. You would think differently now that we hope to have our fourth child at the end of this year, but I think it’s terrible. I mean being pregnant. I love the broken nights, hundreds of diapers and fruit snacks on the ceiling. But the drive to get there is hard, for me that is.

Fulltime

The list of ailments is endless. When I see myself in the mirror, I see another woman. To breastfeed? I should not think about it. Just the idea of ​​cracked nipples, chest infections, wet spots in your shirt and having to deliver on demand (and then also in public or forced to find a place for yourself somewhere) gives me the shivers. It doesn’t suit me at all. I work full-time and as a freelancer, I don’t have the luxury of 16 weeks of maternity leave. Ah, I don’t want to do that at all, 16 weeks of doing nothing. Let me be myself again and then without having to latch on my child every few hours.

bad mom

And yes, I think it’s very nice that I can also have that glass of wine again. That I can choose spicy dishes at our favorite shop. And that I can cook with the ingredients I want. Wonderful if you have elevated breastfeeding to an ideal. But stop looking down on women who go bottle feeding for whatever reason. We do not give our children cola, energy drink or rat poison, but almost perfectly developed formula. I have raised three children with it and they are doing great. Breastfeeding does not make you, I repeat, NOT a bad mother.

No woman has to justify herself on this subject. Not to your friends. Not to your own guy. Not to the midwife or maternity assistant. Not to your mother or mother-in-law and certainly not to ‘the people on social media’. ‘I don’t feel like breastfeeding’ is more than enough. A baby is of no use to a mother who, for whatever reason, is chomping at the bit or feeling miserable over a choice that was intrinsically not hers.

Not light-hearted

It’s 2021. Women have a choice, let them. I have yet to see how many men had made the choice to breastfeed after nine months of gestation. The WHO can tell me more with all the advice, we should not think lightly about six months of breastfeeding. A lot of women don’t do that for a while. And they don’t do that at all if they have had a tough pregnancy or a violent birth. Whatever your reason is not to do it, it’s all good. And whoever says otherwise can have my back. You too, Facebook Gerda.

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