The Andrews - Life in Kanab

Breasts - The Real Story

I think that God had two reasons in mind when he created the breast. One was to obviously feed the offspring and the other was to distract women who are pregnant. See when you are pregnant your chest gets larger. I was surprised that just four weeks into my pregnancy my chest was already in full growing gear. Why so soon I thought? Well, looking back I now realize it is a way to divert a women’s attention away from her ever expanding waistline. There are few things that could do this particularly since most women are obsessed (me included) with keeping there middle at a reasonable or smaller than reasonable size.

All women do it when they find out they are pregnant – take one last look in the mirror at their “before” self. This is where the ingeniousness comes in. Women strip down and stand in front of the mirror. They look at their face and their eye slowly works its way down the body however they always end up stopping at their breast and go “Wow, hey” and then they lean forward to enhance their cleavage. “Hmmm” they say and then they turn side ways pushing their shoulders back and sucking in their still present waistline. Next thing you know they are yelling “Hey honey, come look at this” and they visually never make it any lower than their chest. In fact, I recall putting on my sports bra before a work out and TA DOW my sports bra took on a whole different appearance and yes, I had to do it. I grabbed a pencil, stood it straight up (wink, wink) and ran through the house yelling “Honey, look what I can do!” I even bumped my “5 month” belly as I tore around the corner but the possibility of impaling my chin with the pencil was not lost on the fact that I now had a new pencil holder.

You would think eventually the horror of the growing belly would begin to take its toll but that is where maternity tops save the day. One thing I noticed about maternity tops is that they all seem to be low and I mean LOW cut. So when you look in the mirror you focus on the top and not the bottom. Yup, you lean forward and press your arms together asking in a throaty voice “Can I get you another drink?”

Nursing is just enough of a phenomenon to amuse and refocus your attention away from the issues you face after birth. If humans measured catastrophes of the bodies the way humans measure the weather we could categorize the birthing process as “Hurricane Katrina meets a typhoon, earthquake, tornado and tsunami”. Just like any devastating storm it is not the actual storm that is the worst part it is the aftermath. Yes, the horror of the actual event is covered up by adrenaline (and a good epidural if your smart) but the aftershocks are what cause the true terror. Just like seeing sections of New Orleans completely destroyed a new mom soon realizes that certain “regions” of her anatomy may never fully recover. Luckily, the joy of her new “breastesses” are a perfect diversion. Besides, when you really think about it you are married to a butt man, leg man or breast man. Never ever have I heard of a belly man!