Before Curly Girl was born I was convinced that I'd be a veritable Earth Mother and that all things motherhood including breastfeeding would come easily to me. How diluded was I? I blame the hormones. Fact is that breastfeeding didn't come naturally to us at all. Perhaps it was because Curly Girl was premature and oh-so-tiny, perhaps her stomach wasn't developed enough to digest much milk in each sitting, perhaps I was too stressed-up-to-the-eyeballs and sleep deprived with feeds every two hours around the clock to relax properly. Who knows. Whatever the reason we struggled. Lots. With no health visitor system in China we eventually employed an expat retired UK health visitor to come and watch us feeding and give me advise. Thankfully she didn't stop there and after the first aborted feed she manhandled the two of us into a properly latched position. I can't thank her enough for the invaluable support she gave us in those early days. We went on to continue breastfeeding successfully and finally weaned Curly Girl at sixteen months.

But in a cruel twist of mother nature's fate I've forgotten (or more likely blocked out) a lot of those early, difficult times and now feel like I'm almost back to square one. I definitely want to breastfeed peanut and so with plenty of time until he comes along in November (or there abouts) I've decided to do some proper preparation this time around. So it was fortuitous that I read the excellent Six Ways To Prepare For Breastfeeding from Adele over at Circus Queen and I immediately ordered her recommended reading - 'The Food Of Love' by Kate Evans. Now I expected to smile or perhaps chuckle a bit thanks to Adele and others' reviews but I wasn't prepared to snort my decaf coffee down my nose at six o'clock in the morning. Not pleasant but hellishly funny.