My first child, our daughter, was born a whole six years ago. After she was born, before we even moved from labor and delivery over to recovery, a “lactation nurse” came to help us get started with that whole breastfeeding thing.

Now, I’d never done this before. And even though I had thoroughly studied all sorts of books on the art of breastfeeding and such, I figured I should give this lady, who surely must be trained in the breastfeeding department, a shot at helping us out.

So the lactation nurse cooed over the baby, and then went to help us get latched. And my daughter, having been born with a trace of vacuum cleaner in her, apparently, glommed right on and started suckling away.

Except…it hurt. It hurt a LOT. And all the books had claimed that breastfeeding properly wouldn’t hurt. (I’ve since learned that the books, they lie! But that’s a different story) So I spoke up, somewhat timidly and let the nurse know that this was downright painful.

“Oh, you’ll get used to it, honey,” she assured me, patting my arm before bustling off to her next patient.

Well, this was really painful. It just did not feel right at all. So I popped my little Dyson darling off of my breast, and discovered that while she had indeed latched on, it was not onto my nipple. About a 1/2 inch too high, there was an ugly hickey on my breast.

Moral of the story: Tacking the word lactation onto someone’s title does not an expert make.

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