Ingrid’s life revolves around my breasts. Therefore, so does mine. Hardly an hour goes by without thinking about breasts. (“I defy anyone who is breastfeeding a five week old baby to go a whole 10 minutes without saying boob or breast. I honestly feel like that’s all I ever say anymore.”)

Breastfeeding must be the world’s cheapest and most effective breast enlargement method. Mine – not particularly large to begin with – grew by 2 cup sizes. Seriously, they must have at least doubled in size, if not more. And that’s when they’re empty: let one go un-sucked half a night, and it inflates to the point where it no longer looks like it should be a part of me. I think Eric looks at them with cautious fascination… I myself am starting to view them as alien objects, belonging to Ingrid, not me. She’s just stuck them on me so she doesn’t have to carry them.

For the first time in my life, I have a cleavage. Overrated, I think, this whole cleavage thing… sweaty and itchy.

Size is just half of the story, of course. There’s the milk, too. Breasts, unfortunately, don’t come with a screw cap… the closing mechanism is a bit loose. Basically, they leak. A lot. They leak through everything: the nursing pads (which should, and do, absorb most of the leakage), the bra, the t-shirt, and sometimes the sweater too. Black has turned out to be the only practical colour for t-shirts and tops: everything else looks like I’ve painted two bulls-eyes on my chest.

And I leave wet stains on the bedclothes. Eeuw!

On a more serious note, I think both Ingrid and I have more or less figured out how this breastfeeding thing works. I’ve also found positions that allow her to eat without gagging and choking on the milk when it flows too fast (which it often does – we had some unpleasant days last week when she was really struggling: sucking once, then spluttering and gagging, letting go of the breast, and then crying because of both discomfort and hunger).

Ingrid can now latch on pretty well on her own, without me going through a whole procedure. Most of the time I just need to point her mouth roughly in the right direction and she takes care of the rest. She hasn’t yet learned to look for the target herself: she tends to keep her eyes closed while eating (for concentration?) and tries to suck whatever she can reach… which is rarely the right thing!