For Clarification Purposes

Since it's come up a few times in the Comment section, I feel like I should explain why it is that after four precious kids, I suddenly have issues with nursing at church. First and foremost is that I'm now attending church in a different building than the one I attended when the other kids were babies. That one was a large Stake Center. This one is called a "Phase One" building which is roughly translated to mean "so small Salt Lake City doesn't bother building them anymore." It has no nursing mother's area at all, or so I noticed when we first moved there because Elisa was still nursing occasionally. Also, our congregation outgrew the chapel part of the building over a year ago. We literally could not accomodate all the families for the church service part of our worship. Because, for whatever reason, we can't seem to meet all the criteria for getting a new, bigger building; (The current rumors are that we need at least 100 people in attendence every Sunday for a long period of time and/or more of us need to pay our tithing. And I could believe either one.) we now have a portable building for our Sacrament Meetings. I know, how very "Baptists at our BBQ" of us. The main "Phase 1" building is now used for Sunday School classes, Primary, YW, and the nursery. You can tell that the Nursery room was meant to be an overflow/nursing area at one time because it has the little speaker where you can listen in on what is being said in the chapel, but as I mentioned, we no longer use it as a chapel, so all you hear is an empty room. Because the portable we use as a chapel is just basically one big room, you either nurse right in there in front of everyone or you can go to the other building as I have been doing. However, you can't hear the church service while you are in there and you might miss out on taking the Sacrament (communion) if your baby happens to be hungry when it is being passed. That's what happened to me yesterday and it made me very sad.

For most of the pregnancy, my plan was that I would just bring a big blanket with me each Sunday and nurse in the chapel so that I didn't miss anything. After all, one of my biggest supporters for nursing was a wonderful LDS woman and so many of us in the church nurse our babies rather than bottlefeed. In fact, it's so much more common that surely no one would mind me feeding my baby as long as I covered myself, right? That was my thinking until last June. Then, I read the comments of a blog post that raised questions about when and where it was appropriate to breastfeed in public and I was stunned by some of the thoughtless, puritanical responses on there. Women were telling other women to go into the restroom if they just HAD to feed their babies or just to "time things better since you KNOW (emphasis mine) when your baby is going to be hungry" and just feed it before or after church. (Really? Because my kids shifted schedules on me all of the time as they grew.) Almost everyone said "cover up" which is fine IF baby will let you, and one even said 'I don't want to hear any slurping under there even if you are covered.' I'm guessing she's childless. To their credit, there were also several who pointed out the disgust factor of nursing in the bathroom (something I WILL NOT do, just so you know) and who, like me, have noticed that there's no bigger way of saying "LOOK EVERYONE I AM NURSING" than by putting a cutesy pastel or floral "Hooter Hider" around your neck. In the past, I have nursed with less coverage and been noticed by far fewer people when I did it. I really didn't even think it was a big deal until I read the comments of about 100 women that do think so, and now I'm a little spooked.

I think at this point, I'm going to let those ladies speak for themselves and link to the original post. I've been reluctant to do so until now because the blogger herself merely raised some legitimate questions and I don't want her to receive any backlash for what commenters said in response. She is a lovely person and from time to time likes to leave the meatier parts of her posting to her large reading audience. Why shouldn't she? But as I mentioned, some of the comments of that particular audience really made me second-guess my own nursing habits and whether or not they had been modest enough in the eyes of the women surrounding me. This sweet young lady is a member of my church as were most of the respondents to her question. I was particularly hurt by the few moms who suggested that any "good" nursing mom knows how to organize her time so that she is able to pump before church starts and not have to show herself during the three hours worth of meetings. With myself and four other kids to get ready each Sunday, I am not that good and I doubt that I ever will be. I will admit that I've got no desire to show myself off at church, but I also hate feeling like I'm in exile every time the baby gets hungry. I really hated missing out on taking Sacrament last week because that's why I go to church in the first place. Also, there is a new guy at church who thinks it's his personal mission to make sure that no one is in the other building when they should be in the chapel paying attention to the church service. He has now walked in on me twice thinking he was catching some of the teenagers in the act of skipping church. It's bad enough that I have to leave the building, is that kind of embarassment really necessary too?!

I'm going to link to the post (the comments follow it) with the hope that because the blogger herself merely posed a question, because one of the "use the nursing mother's lounge, that's what it's FOR" commenters emailed me apologetically when I explained that not all church buildings have them, and because this post is over three months old; that everyone is merely there to read what has already been written and not to re-start anything in the aforementioned comment section which would only come to the attention of the blog author who doesn't need the hassle now that school has started back up for her and she is in the final stretch of her degree. Having re-read the comments, there are many that are positive and supportive; but there are still enough negative words (some by women who proclaim themselves to be nursing mothers) to make me feel self-conscious about nursing my baby at church in ways that I never was before now. The post is here and all I can say in conclusion is that I wish I lived in Italy where no one cares where or how you feed your baby in church or otherwise because everyone has grown up with public nursing and the only people who notice are the American visitors.