I’m going to preface this entire post because I have seen incredibly harsh comments on similar pictures and posts. This post is about breastfeeding, feel free to stop now.

1. You can’t see anything in this picture, even if you zoom in and squint. There is no skin showing.
2. This is what God made them for.
3. I’m very modest. This is the first and most likely last picture you will see of me nursing.
4. I am putting this out there to encourage other women and negativity won’t be allowed.
5. I fully support breastfeeding in public. Covered or uncovered.
6. I think it’s insane that the society we live in thinks breasts are fine until you put a baby on them.

I always joke that the only things I am good at are having and feeding babies. We laugh and say that I would be every farmers dream if I was a cow. Can you tell I’m married to a farmer? These are the things we talk about!

Yesterday was filled with chaos and somehow in the midst of it I got roped into running the grain cart. This was fine because I love running the grain cart, but I had both boys with me. Jake offered to take the toddler with him in the semi to haul milo to the elevator, and I would keep the baby with me. Not a problem at all. Then I realized how fast the combines were filling up and there wasn’t going to be any down time for me on the tractor. That was fine until the baby decided he was hungry. He hates a bottle and I wasn’t prepared with snacks since I didn’t know we would be staying at the field. I wouldn’t have been able to drive and nurse him, so I parked the tractor between the two combines and they came to me to unload while I nursed.

I took this picture because to be honest, I felt like a bad a** and I thought the whole situation was funny. Here these farmers are out harvesting and used to one of the guys being right there with the grain cart, and then I get on and am sitting in the middle of the field breastfeeding. I’m sure they weren’t expecting that and I can only imagine what was going through their minds. But I fully stressed myself out about having to feed him there. I didn’t have a blanket, and obviously the windows are see through.

Like I said: I am very modest and discreet about nursing, but I fully support how, where, and when women choose to nurse. I am in a few Facebook groups for farm wives and women in agriculture, so I shared the picture in those groups where I knew the other women could relate. I found it just another humorous situation that farm wives get themselves into. I did not expect the responses that I got. There were SO many women who thanked me for sharing and had similar stories. There was a comment where a woman said that her faith in humanity was restored because there was not a single negative comment out of over a hundred. That’s when it hit me. 

She had a great point, but how sad that we were all expecting a negative comment on such a harmless picture? When I put the picture on there, it was to relate with other ladies and encourage them, but I was fully expecting a few nasty comments when I did it. I was just hoping that the good would outweigh the bad. I see a lot of breastfeeding pictures on social media, and I know a lot of women fight really hard to help normalize breastfeeding. If I can share a picture and help the cause a little bit, then I will. Even if it puts me a little outside of my comfort zone. I really hope that one day breastfeeding in public will not be viewed how it currently is. I commend every single woman that is helping to normalize breastfeeding because I didn’t realize how worried about it I was until I got myself so worked up about having to feed him where I did. It had nothing to do with the guys on the combines, but the fact that I know how a lot of people view breastfeeding and the negativity around it. We should’t have to face hateful comments and negativity just for feeding our babies.