"The Nipple/Areola Monalogue"

I know 100% of moms know what an Areola is. What about the rest of you? Well, the painting on the right should give you a good hint ;-)

Once I had Isabel, my views about my breasts and nipples changed completely and I am now fully introduced to my Areola (the brown part around the nipple), which I never paid much attention before.

Breastfeeding now dominates my world. My breasts, nipples, and areola have become the perfect food delivering mechanism for Isabel and had to go through a complete transformation as well. From a a 36B, I am now a ful 40D. You would think I would rejoice and I guess part of me does, although I know it will be short-lived. After I stop breastfeeding, they are supposed to shrink to a size smaller than 36B :-(.

The transformation is not so easy as just getting bigger. First week of breastfeeding was very trying. Now I understand why some moms give up. The baby must latch onto the areola in order to stimulate milk supply and avoid hurting me. Well, as you would imagine, a new baby does not quite know that and while Isabel seems all cute and fragile. She, as all new borns, have a jaw of steels and was literally chumping on my nipples until I learned how she can latch on correctly to feed. The result: stabbing pain to the heart when she feeds in the first week which was about 8-10 a day, as she accidentally cut up my nipples a bit while experimenting and learning the latch.

They say that breastfeeding sometime is more painful than birth. I may disagree given my birth experience but the pain for breastfeeding at first was definitely substantial. I was torn between wanting to stop and being happy that she is feeding on me as long as possible.

Luckily, the damage she caused in the first week healed by itself after 10 days as I continued with her and took deep breaths through the pain. Now my nipples are trained to take some bruising without bleeding or tearing and Isabel knows to suck on the areola part to get the most milk - the miracle of human creation. I was also lucky so far to avoid painful engorgement issues as I learned to massage my breast during feeding to avoid clogging up my milk ducts.

So, from being the object of admiration, my breasts are now the lifeline and nutrition center for Isabel and the areola is center of all the action. Welcome to my world!

-Lei