I knew it would be a baby-filled day with a La Leche League meeting in the morning, an ultrasound in the afternoon followed by a weekly check-up at the doctor’s office, but the surprise came at a Thai restaurant later in the evening. The young mother breastfeeding in a bathroom stall offered a glimpse of events to come.
Nutrition during breastfeeding was the topic at the morning La Leche League meeting in Alexandria. The meeting was excellent – I arrived with nutrition-related questions and left with answers. Plus, it was good to spend an hour with a group of moms and their kids.
This was my first LLL meeting and it was mostly what I expected – an open discussion about breastfeeding-related topics with a little random mom talk thrown in. A guest leader directed the conversation around nutrition, but for the most part the discussion was open and mothers shared their stories, fed their babies and seemed to enjoy an hour of camaraderie.
Driving to Moe’s for a burrito after the meeting, I spent some time thinking about my exposure to children up to this point. I am an only child and I don’t have close family members with children. Amongst my close friends, I am the first to take the parenthood plunge. So most of my interactions with children take place in public places such as restaurants and grocery stores – neither are ideal locations to get a good understanding of how children behave.
At the LLL meeting – held in a church nursery filled with toys, happy moms and a snack – the kids were alright. In fact, they were downright enjoyable. I look forward to the next meeting when I can bring a little one along as well.
I still have some general how-to and what-if questions about breastfeeding that I need answered, and plan to check in with a lactation consultant and a LLL leader in the coming days.
Fast forward through Friday, through a standard ultrasound and a missed doctor’s appointment (I love Northern Virginia traffic!), and my husband and I had just finished dinner at a Thai restaurant when I excused myself to the ladies room. There were two stalls.
One stall was in need of repair, the other was occupied. So I waited. And waited some more.
I could see two feet under the occupied stall but witnessed no movement and heard nothing. I started to wonder what was going on in there. Should I knock, was everything OK?
Another lady entered the restroom. I explained that one stall was broken and she stood behind me in the beginning of a line. At this point, the young woman occupying the stall emerged with a tiny infant held close to her chest.
She explained that she was just in there breastfeeding and that we could go ahead and use the restroom. The other woman in line and I offered to bring a chair into the bathroom, but she insisted that they operate this way all of the time and that she was fine standing beside the bathroom sink feeding her infant son.
I would have wanted a chair and am taking this opportunity to say now that in the future, I want a chair.
But more importantly, the brief bathroom breastfeeding experience exposed me to a side of motherhood that I haven’t given much thought. When I think about my first weeks with a new baby, I think about moments at home and time with friends and family. I haven’t once thought about having to hide in the bathroom in order to feed my daughter.
And while I know that breastfeeding in public is not 100 percent acceptable, Friday was the first time I have come face to face with someone who sought refuge in the bathroom. I wondered why she was in there (I didn’t ask) instead of pulling out a shawl or blanket and feeding at the table, disapproving looks from strangers or not. Was her comfort level the reason she decided to spend a portion of her dinner in the bathroom stall? Were there disapproving looks?
(Maybe she wasn’t even eating there, but just using the bathroom?)
I don’t have a complete plan for myself yet, and know that I will have to walk in those shoes before I know what my comfort level and response will be, but I wonder how many bathroom stalls I’ll spend time in bonding with and feeding my daughter.
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