September 27th, 1999

Warning: guys who are squeamish about "women stuff" should probably read no further. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Pregnancy is full of interesting surprises. This weekend, I was comforting my cat, Ash, who had become upset when I clipped her claws. She started crying like a baby and so I picked her up and cradled her -- and then noticed something strange. My shirt was getting wet. No, Ash had not puked or peed on me. The wetness was coming from me. I checked out my breasts and realized that droplets of colostrum were coming from my nipples. The process of nurturing my upset cat had triggered the classic "let down response" that nursing mothers experience when their babies cry.

I immediately called a friend who is a breastfeeding Mom and quizzed her about whether this was normal. Wasn't this a little early? No. Some women can leak as early as month five. "Look at it this way," my friend told me, "now you know that your breasts work. You should be able to nurse with no problem."

Once I calmed down, I began to get curious about the whole thing. After all, my breasts had never done anything like this before. I started to squeeze them experimentally to see if I could trigger the let down response manually, too. Yes. And I discovered interesting things about how my breasts worked. I'd always assumed that in any given breast there would be one main hole where where the liquid squirted out. But in each nipple there are actually five or six ducts that spout liquid from different directions and at different speeds, depending on how the baby sucks the breast. These are not symmetrical from breast to breast, either. My two breasts seem to have ducts in totally different locations, and my breasts also flow at different speeds. Weird.

While all this is kind of cool, it's also a bit inconvenient. That first day, I discovered that just about any high-pitched crying noise from a cat or a baby could force me to go run and change my shirt. Andy thought this was hilarious, and started to make meowing noises to see if he could set me off. He couldn't, but I glared at him anyway. Since then, I've learned about the wonders of nursing pads and how to cross my arms tightly in front of my chest to stop unwelcome flows.

Pregnancy is weird, folks. Your own body becomes this alien thing. No wonder so many science fiction writers are women.

Hmm

Editor's note: This is the last of the 1999 entries. For a good summary of some of the experiences leading up to the next journal entry, please check out holiday newsletters written for 1999 and 2000.