Boobie Trap

During the summer between my junior and senior years of college, I found myself seated next to a woman who had the unmistakable look of a Talker. No book. No lap top. Cellphone already off. Arms and face wide open for her seatmate. The equivalent of walking into your freshman dorm room and finding Elle Woods as your roommate. As I was bound for Los Angeles from Boston, I froze in my tracks, taking stock of the plane in hopes of an empty seat I could slide into to avoid engaging in the banal exchange of minutia that usually ensues with people who were never taught that cramped quarters were not the place for over exuberant small talk.
Unfortunately, at my moment of possible escape, the captain informed the plane that we were flying a packed ship, today. I sighed and leaned back in my seat, taking on a look of what I thought said "do not engage".
Not only did this approach not head off conversation but The Talker but she launched into a full disclosure of her line of work: A lactation consultant. Sure, I knew all about why a woman should breastfeed and the horrors of Nestle and the like with their formula wielding techniques but I didn't need to discuss the politics and racial dynamics of it when my breathing space was limited.
About twenty minutes into the conversation, I began to pay attention. It was actually pretty interesting from a social activism point of view but all I retained from the conversation was that she and her organization were hoping to get trendy breastfeeding musicians and or their trendy breastfeeding partners to speak out in favor of it to ramp up the popularity. I had, at that point, no intention of having children, never mind getting involved with other people's breasts.

Four and a half years after that conversation, I found myself back on a lengthy air journey, this time from Boston to Atlanta. My personal scenery had changed dramatically. Being the first passenger to board, I had time to get settled. I put down my whistle-blowing, birthing expose by famed OBGYN and former WHO member, Marsden Wagner, unclipped my son from his cushy baby carrier around my torso and tucked myself into the window seat to feed him before the rest of my flightmates boarded.

Perhaps it was the conversation from half a decade before that made me a little bit self consious about breastfeeding in closed quarters. I knew that it was the best thing for my baby and I fed him, hooter hider in use of course, at the mall, the park, the bookstore, restaurants, and the like but I had never been quite this close to someone else at the time. I had managed to feed him quickly on the flight up after much deliberation. The man next to me stared out the window the entire time glancing over occasionally peeked over to see if I was done. After all was finished, I quickly put my coverup away and ignoring my cardinal rule of rowmate silence, I decided to chat with him to perhaps make his look of agony disappear. asked him he was a BC, man, given his jacket. Well yes he was. Well what did he think of that young Matt Ryan? The color slowly evened out in his face and he began to breathe normally again, no longer in the excruciating discomfort as he seemed to be in a moment before. We discussed football for an hour and a half, easing tension on both sides.

I had decided that I would probably try to avoid such awkwardness on the return flight and so there I was nursing my son to sleep when a woman and her male partner sidled into my row. I looked up, a little crushed that the flight would again be full enough to eliminate this bizarre new need for personal space. What I saw nearly knocked me of the seat. The woman had her nine month old infant in an Ergo (see: cushy baby carrier). What luck! We could sit together and wear our little cover ups and feed our little boys together with no need for apologies!

No sooner had we greeted one another and settled in than I noticed something amiss. My fellow mile high mom did not intend to use a cover up. Alright then, change of plans. Maybe this would be my chance to breastfeed in public without the silly contraption that looked like an oversized bib covering my son's head while he ate without completely exposing myself to a plane full of people who didn't want to see The Ladies. I could finally be comfortable and maybe I could just use my sweatshirt wing to make the transition a little bit easier.

I was well on my way to being one happy mama when the flight attendant came by and told us that there had been a mistake and I would need to switch to the other side of the aisle as there are four oxygen masks in each row and they could not have five people in a row. Now, instead of breastfeeding heaven, I was in hell. My displacement had caused a man who looked suspiciously similar to the BC fan (read: old, male and uptight) between us. I had noticed his discerning looks as the other mom had simply lifted up her shirt sans any cover. On my other side was a girl who had told me as we were waiting to board, was going into her senior year of college.

Great. I was at risk for making two people uncomfortable. Compounded with the trickiness of making my non-breastfeeding neighbors uncomfortable , I now had the added pressure of my other mother who I wouldn't want to offend by covering up if SHE wasn't covering up.

I was trapped.

Fortunately, there is nothing quite like a screaming baby to make one act fast. Kai looked like he was going to explode and I knew that this was the time to sink or swim. With one deep breath, I smiled at all parties, donned my nursing cover, and fed my son. No one was uncomfortable. No one even seemed to notice what I was doing and the mom across the aisle was busy feeding her son.

Looking back on my three airborne breastfeeding experiences, one of which failed to actually include feeding at all, I would like to say that I feel somewhat evolved. From blushing audience to uncomfortable experimenter and finally a potentially shunned feminist for not showing everything off, I had made progress. Some may say it's a compromise between the two extremes: breastfeeding sans cover and breastfeeding in a closet but I think that this is just my style. It affords those who would rather discuss up and coming quarter backs the luxury of not having to look away and also allows my to be true to myself and my son.

Hopefully the college student next to me wasn't too horrified. Any who knows, even if she was, she may be writing similar story in four and a half years.