Karen and Terry Lynn:

Karen, your posting tonight suddenly brought back a deeply buried memory
which I would like to share "intimately" with all of my 370 friends here on
Lactnet. I havent' thought about this in maybe 18 years or so.

BACKGROUND:I wasn't BF...born in Illinois in 1951 when my mother was told
"redheads can't breastfeed." Yeah, right. Anyway, my mom was adopted, so
what did she know? - plus no-one was BFing in the 50's (precisely why LLLI
came into being)

I had been married a couple of years, not pregnant yet...living in Yucatan
and visiting mayan villages all the time. One weekend, at the Baha'i
Institute south of Merida in a small town near the ruins of Uxmal, I asked
one of the maya ladies who was attending a weekend event there if I might
hold her baby for a while.  She smiled and happily handed her little
treasure over to my arms.

Here's the memory:  I took this child of, oh, maybe 7-10 months into a room
by myself, sat down in the hammock...took out my breast, and tried to offer
it to the baby.
Naturally, the kid looked puzzled for a minute...and then figured out 1) I
wasn't his usual source of nourishment (different facial features, not to
mention smell, etc.) and 2) My breast was a whole lot whiter than his
momma's...which must have been the clincher that got him crying.

Back he went to his mother. End of Memory.

I ask myself - what made me do this thing? My mother wasn't breastfed. I
wasn't breastfed. I wasn't pregnant. Yet some inner urge wanted to know
what having a child suckle my breast would feel like. Obviously I knew that
nothing was going to come out.   Or did I ?

POST SCRIPT:  My son, now 17, breastfed for 3 yr.8 mo.
              My daughter,11, for 3 yrs.

POSSIBLE MORAL TO THIS TALE: Maternal instinct will eventually prevail. At
least that is what helps me keep the faith.

Buenas noches,

Roberta