I can't help but wonder.
If I had been breastfed instead of formula fed, would I be....
Smarter?
Thinner?
Would I have better vision?
Would my hearing be better?
Would I be able to eat dairy without running to the bathroom an hour later?
Would I have a better relationship with my mother?
http://www.drmomma.org/2011/06/breastfeeding-advocacy-and-formula.html
I'm not dumb, but just maybe, I wouldn't have struggled so much in math.
I think about what I could do/would do with those IQ points I was deprived of.
How different my life could be, the direction I might have taken with more
brain power. I could accept whatever IQ I was naturally supposed to have,
high or low, because I would know it was the intelligence I was meant to have.
Formula denied me ever really being able to know what my true potential is/was.
I needed glasses to see when I was 12, I have to ask people to repeat themselves
because I have a hard time hearing them- the doctor told my mother after the
constant ear infections I suffered as a child, I might have lost hearing.
Breastmilk protects against ear infections. Do the math.
I have a love/hate relationship with ice cream, cheese,
and I haven't had cows milk in my house in years. The lactose intolerance just isn't
worth it. I wonder, had I been given human breastmilk instead of cow uddermilk,
meant for baby cows, would I have not developed an allergy to it
by being given the wrong thing? I was fed food meant for
a hoofed animal my entire first year of life. It makes me wonder.
I struggle with my weight- would I be one of those women who snap right back
into their pre- baby weight bodies had I been breastfed as a baby myself?
Would working out not be such a work out, would I not be suffering the
effects of being overweight? I'll never know. Maybe, maybe not. I wonder.
I have always envied my girlfriends who chat with their mothers like
they chat with their girlfriends. Who actually ENJOY spending time with
their mom. They go shopping together, they cry over happy and sad things
together. They are awesome grandmas to their daughters children.
They wanted their mothers for support during childbirth. I wonder
what that's like. Maybe our personalities are too different
for that kind of relationship, or maybe had we bonded, fell in love,
over and over, as I looked into her face as she looked into mine
every time I was put to her breast, that bond would have/could
have overcome our differences, maybe.
Am I "just fine", or not?
I can't help but wonder.
