A Love Letter to My Breasts

At first I didn’t even realize you were there.

You sprung up seemingly overnight, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was thirteen, my body already changing in all kinds of ways. One day, in civics class, my friend Lisa leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I think it’s time for you to start wearing a bra.” I looked down and was greeted by two C-sized signs of my impending womanhood. Oh hello, I said. Where did you come from?

Those were the good old days when you were pert, perky, and forgave all manner of sins. Small-chested girls had to have a nice face or a good body to compensate, but one could get away with a lot if they had nice boobs. I loved you, never once wishing you were gone so I could wear backless shirts or spaghetti strap dresses.

In college, that’s when you shined. You got an airing then too, although not to too many different eyes. You were fondled and kissed and it was all very pleasurable. In years of yo-yo dieting, you grew when I gained weight and shrunk when I lost it, but you were always there, leading me forward into the future. One lover boy christened you “Ralph Nader” (the left one, of course) and “The Other Guy.” Ralph was the favorite, despite being slightly smaller. The real Ralph Nader subsequently disappeared from view, but the name stuck for long after lover boy was a distant memory.

I confess, there were a few years where I probably took you for granted. Round and firm, you looked beautiful in swimsuits worn while crisscrossing the globe, when you smelled of sunscreen and boasted a tan line. But mostly I forgot you were there, assumed you’d always be the way you were—part of me, belonging to me, and only to me.

And then came babies.

Before I had children, an older friend told me her greatest regret was not taking nude photos of herself before she had children. “Your body will change to the point you don’t even recognize it,” she told me. Ha, I scoffed to myself, while making sympathetic faces to her. It won’t happen to me.

Ha, indeed.

It wasn’t even the pregnancy that was so bad. Yes, you did expand over the months in utero, looking like water balloons ready for a fight, but when my milk came in, the transformation was astounding.

I breastfed for eight weeks only. No one made me feel guilty, though, because I had twins: actual twins, not a pseudonym for you.

My hospital offered a “Breastfeeding Twins” class that I attended around the sixth month. The lactation teacher was a woman who was still breastfeeding her five-year-old. She told us that when he misbehaved, she punished him by denying a breastfeed. I still say a silent prayer sometimes for that boy and his future dating life.

And then all at once the babies came, and you filled with milk. Because they were premature, the twins needed feeding tubes while their sucking reflexes developed. We were instructed that it was critical that babies received that precious colostrum, the thick substance that comes out of you right after birth. I spent hours squeezing drops out of you into a tiny syringe. I’ve never milked a cat, but I think that is what it would be like.

The lactation consultant came to visit us. I optimistically told her how I was going to use all the tricks she taught us. “Oh, just give it your best shot,” she said, which told me I was in trouble.

You’ll recall, the actual breastfeeding was atrocious. Most of the time it felt like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan: carnage. First, I would have to sit down and affix the double breastfeeding pillow around my waist. Then someone would bring me one twin to latch, feet facing out. By this point you had swollen to nearly watermelon size and my tiny premature babies’ heads were very small. I worried constantly with one wrong move, you would crush them.

Once one twin latched, the second twin would be brought over, my daughter, who fought and squirmed. Her moving would usually have dislodged my son. Then, I’d have to delicately get him back on without disturbing her. This never worked. The process continued, until the five of us (me, two babies, two breasts) were exhausted, six to eight times per day.

But back to you, my wonderful breasts. You were ravaged by this point, the breastfeeding plus the supplemental milking from a double breast pump that pulled each nipple forward at least two feet to extract the most milk possible. I think the pumping was the lowest of the low. Once, my brother accidentally walked in on me connected to the double pump; if he hadn’t already been gay, I think that would have pushed him over the edge.

When I finished breastfeeding I was relieved if a bit deflated, which is also a good way to describe you by that point. Definitely the deflated part. You shrunk back to more or less normal, size-wise, but had flopped downward, and downward you would stay.

So now, approaching middle age, all manner of equipment in the form of bras with sturdy underwire and three clasps in the back is required to get you looking decent in clothes, and we all know where the future is headed (downward). This is the time of life when women get sour on their breasts, wishing for reductions or a little lift. I wouldn’t promise I’d never go for an enhancement, but I still think as fondly of you, my beauties, as I did when I was thirteen. We’ve been through a lot together, and I look forward to seeing you wrinkled and old and saggy—the sign of a life exceptionally well lived.

You’re the greatest, the pair of you.

-Alisha Fernandez Miranda

Alisha Fernandez Miranda is a new writer and spends most of her time as the CEO of a philanthropy and social impact consulting firm. In her not-so-spare time, she is writing a memoir, “The 40-Year-Old Intern,” about taking on unpaid internships at the dream jobs of her childhood. This is what she calls a “personal journey,” but other, less generous people might call “a midlife crisis.” She’s still waiting for a response from NASA about that astronaut internship. When she’s not interning, Alisha, who hails from Miami but is based in London and the Isle of Skye, loves to travel, watch Gilmore Girls, be served coffee in bed by her adoring/ long-suffering husband, and hide from her eight-year-old twins when they want to play Twister.