Breastfeeding, is beautiful, special and the only thing the world that only mother's can do for their children. It also seems to be one of the great feminine debates. We as women seem unable to agree on much as a whole. Although we fought together for sufferage we've splintered apart from each other, from the balms of sisterhood that forge us together. We rip each other apart about breastfeeding and working versus staying at home. There is the "should" breast feed camp versus the "don't want to's". It is assumed that you, as a woman and mother must fall into one of those two opposing "camps" of thought. What about those of us who fall in the middle of the question? Those of us in the "can't" camp?

Being unable to breastfeed seems like such a failure, especially if you want to breast feed. I wanted to be able to do that, I took classes, I studied and had a lactation consultant. I was prepared to feed my daughter knowing how difficult it could be but I was determined to do it.

"How do you make God laugh?"

"Tell HIM your plans."

Fully prepared to have a baby that I would breastfeed, I went into my Doctor's office, the day after I began my maternity leave and was told I needed to have a c-section, right then that day. Seven weeks before she was due and five weeks before we were going to induce. My OB had to cancel appointments, they had to call doctor's from across town and prep me for surgery in less than thirty minutes, because of a 6 inch tear in my placenta. My appointment was at eight in the morning, my daughter was born at 12:58. Ok, fine that experience though scary was nothing compared to what was coming.

Two weeks later I was in the CCU, literally on what could have been my death bed. My daughter couldn't come see me and I'd been pumped so full of drugs, that the milk I was expressing could not be used. I watched for ten days as the nurses took the milk I was expressing with a breast pump and poured it down the sink in front of me. Bottles and bottles of milk, my daughter's life blood down the drain. That was hideously painful, and it still gives me a pang in my heart to remember that day after day. After I was released from the hospital I was still on blood thinners and advised against breast feeding. No one knew for sure if Warfarin was expressed through breast milk, and blood thinners in an infant are not such a good idea. Therefore I was unable to feed my child. I was on blood thinners for nine months and by then my daughter was firmly on a Soy based formula. My daughter is five years old and smart, funny, healthy, but I still have this horrid guilt because I was unable to breast feed her

Everyone knows that it's better for the baby to be breast fed and I mean EVERYBODY. The cabbie, the old lady down the street and the other new mothers, old mothers and everyone else in the neighborhood felt as if it were their duty to chastise me when they saw the bottle. The inconsiderate rudeness of telling an absolute stranger that she should be "breast feeding that baby", aggravates the goodness right out of me. I felt the need to defend myself, as I'm sure most women would. I told the truth that I couldn't breast feed, which led to other questions of a far too personal nature. Sorry but it was none of ANY body's business why I couldn't breastfeed.

Breastfeeding is a personal decision , it is not a debate, it is not open for discussion and it definitely not a weapon to use against another woman.

If you see a woman, or a man bottle feeding don't make assumptions as to why. Perhaps yes, she did not want to be latched down to a feeding schedule. However, just perhaps she could not, for no fault of her own, breast feed her child. The same goes for a woman to makes the decision to breast feed. If she is feeding her child whether it be in public, private on the bus or at the pool, what she is doing is giving nourishment to a child the way in which God intended. No one says a breast feeding sow is "obscene". God designed us this way and fortunately in HIS wisdom he also put someone on this earth to invent baby formula, Henri Nestle (yes of chocolate fame), so that those of us who could not breast feed would have an alternative.

For breast feeding mothers, I wish I could have been one of you. What you do is an awesome testament to both God's and a mother's love for her children.

For those of you out there who by choice, or by fate do not breast feed that's okay too. Your children will be funny and smart and pretty whether they were breast fed, or bottle fed. This is one aspect of being a parent, and no matter what you'll be up at three in the morning, tired and grumpy because the baby is fussy and all that baby wants to know at that instant is that whether it is breast milk or formula that there will be food. Soon.