The novelty of other women touching your partner’s breasts wears off very quickly

The Story:

The forward, explicit nature of maternity ward nurses was a shock to me, and the ease in which my partner accepted it even more so. I wondered whether she was truly nervous and not showing it, whether she had mentally prepared herself for this during the pregnancy, or whether there was a hormone released in a new mother that makes casual nudity with strangers acceptable. She acted as if it was the most natural thing in the worlds that every few hours a stranger would walk into our room, ask my partner to reveal her breasts and woman-handle them until they were satisfied. My disbelief was very quickly overtaken by joy as I began to see the benefit of everyone in the room acting as if two quite lovely women caressing my partners’ breasts at once was perfectly acceptable. After all, the depraved part of my brain reasoned, isn’t women attending to my newborn child’s only food supply just a step away from a threesome? A sinful grin crept into my face the first few times this obviously erotic ritual transpired; the action played out in front of me in slow motion, the midwife locked eyes with my fiancé, Marvin Gaye crooned softly, and the lights dimmed low. Nevermind the mechanical way these nurses were squeezing as if milking a cow, nevermind the wince my partner made every second, nevermind the wailing baby in my arms crying because she somehow knew her supper was being prepared nearby – this was SEXY.

That fantasy quickly drained away sometime during the process of a tired, middle aged midwife swatting my partner’s hands away, forcibly grabbing her breasts, rearranging them into a shape they had never been before and squeezing them harshly until a strange yellow liquid seeped from them. The fact the midwife cheered as if she had won a hand at poker didn’t help. She triumphantly held up the liquid she had sucked into a syringe as if it was the heart of a dragon she had just vanquished.  Also not helping: the way she cut off every damn question my partner had about breastfeeding with a patronizing demand for her to do something she had never done before in her life. “No no, make the nipple pointy whilst moving your babies’ head so the nostril is touching the top of the nipple. No you also need to push your breast from behind.” I’ll admit that last part puzzled me. How can she push from behind her breast? The midwife seemed unaware that whilst her entire working life was made up of women manipulating what used to simply be fashionable top fillers into cow udders, to the women she was assisting the entire process was confusing, painful and depressing. If this is what a threesome would be like I decided monogamy was for me.

The Lesson:

The first few days in the hospital contain experiences that you will both never experience ever again. Depending on your personality, your religion, your upbringing, or any phobias you possess they may be extremely confronting or shocking. The nudity part to me was very surprising but I never felt completely uneasy as to what I should be doing (the answer was keep my trap shut). What was shocking was when a midwife lifted up my partner’s legs to find her laying in what must have been at least a litre of blood. “Oh dear” was the midwife’s response to that. Oh dear…. The point is you really need to learn to roll with the punches, communicate with and help your partner, trust that the hospital staff know what hell they are doing.