I have spent the last few days ferociously knitting breasts, as anyone who notices me on Facebook will know. People think I’m being mysterious about it, which is because I haven’t explained why I’m knitting breasts. I will explain it here, because nobody who reads this is in my BFC tutor group (I hope!).
So, about 2.5 years ago, I signed up to train with NCT as a breastfeeding counsellor. I was full of passion and ideals and that sort of thing. I thought I knew a lot about breastfeeding. I wanted to help people.
I had no idea it was a 3-5 year counselling diploma, with a whole bunch of essays to write and lots and lots of books to read. I was actually quite pleased when I found out. I never even considered training with anyone other than NCT, even though I do attribute the breakthrough in confidence and competence that kept me breastfeeding to La Leche League. Again, I realised later that this was very much the right choice. The NCT culture is more suited to the way I want to work; very much person-centred and realistic. I am talking now about the way the Specialist Workers (teachers, counsellors) operate, not necessarily about people’s perceptions of local NCT branches. Quite another animal.
Having finished all the work a few weeks ago, and submitted my portfolio, and received a letter saying by the way, you passed, yesterday I received my Licence to Practise. Which means that tomorrow may well be my last tutorial, and the knitted boobs are goodbye presents for the girls in my tutor group. They are teaching aids, souvenirs, funnies.
Although I will join a supervision group in a few months, I am going to miss the support from my tutor group. Once one becomes a Toddler Feeding Weirdo, there are few people left with whom one can be entirely congruent. I don’t want to alarm people, put them off by seeming extreme. I do want people to know, because I would like it not to be seen as an odd thing to do; and the more people who talk about it, the less weird it gets.
So anyway, my tutor group. Pretty much the only place I can complain about morning feeds without being advised to stop feeding. And I can talk about our ongoing sleep problems to people who will empathise and not judge. And I can use words like breast and nipple without making people uncomfortable. And so I wanted to say goodbye with a breast.