You have nothing but good intentions before your baby is born. You hope your baby will succeed in the game of life better than you have. You go to baby classes, and they show you films and give advice. You take some of it and discard the rest. No matter which baby classes you take or even if you don't take any at all, every health care professional and baby book tells you to breast-feed your baby.

They say that it helps with the bonding of mother and child (this is true). It's an instinctive action that all babies have to latch onto breast at birth (this is false). They say it helps with immunities and food allergies (this is true). They demonstrate how to breast feed with a balloon because it's similar (this is false). My mom breast-fed me and I turned out pretty healthy, so it was a no-brainer that Maria would breast-feed Donna Rose when she came into the world.

During the first three days of Donna Rose's life in mid-August, Maria didn't have milk yet. She had colostrum. This is more of a clear liquid, full of vitamins and nutrients, but it's not very filling. As much as everyone said breast-feeding would be a cinch before we had the baby, they all changed their tune once the baby was born. "It takes time," "You'll get the hang of it in a month or two" Even my mom said she didn't feel comfortable breast-feeding my oldest brother until he was four months old!

Donna Rose was not a natural with the boob. In fact, she downright hated the boob in the beginning. She would scream and howl every feeding time, and Maria became quite frustrated as well. To top things off, Maria got a cut on her right breast which made breast-feeding even more difficult and painful. We had consultants come in at the hospital and early doctor visits, and sure enough, they always had one more helpful hint each time they came.

Maria was not blessed with torpedo nipples even after the milk came in, so she had to use what they call a nipple shield. It's basically a rubber nipple that she would place on her nipple, making it easier for baby to latch on. It's a good thing they made those, because Maria probably would have quit after a week without it. Donna Rose wouldn't take the bare breast, but she would suck using that nipple shield. We continued the good fight to breast-feed her.

Along with the nipple shield, another common tool is the pump. When baby is not draining the boobs during feedings, mothers must pump the leftover milk. When our donated Evenflo electric pump died after the second use, it was my job as father to go out and get a pump. I purchased a Gerber hand pump at Wal-mart, because I thought a manual pump would never go bad. Apparently, that was wrong. It never worked at all. We could never figure out what was wrong with it, but it never pumped anything. Since they are hygienic products, they cannot be returned. Nice baby scam, folks. I was out thirty bucks.

Then I went to Babies-R-Us and looked at all the pumps. I saw the Avent hand pump for $45, and the Medela electric pumps ranging from $70-300. The more expensive the pump, the more they looked like Playstation controllers. I settled on the hand pump and some extra bottles. It worked! Unfortunately, it's also a lengthy process to hand pump two boobs (at least half an hour). My brother offered to buy the electric pump the next week, and we got the single electric pump the next week. Both have proven to be good buys.

Breast-feeding a baby also means you will not sleep through the night. Every three or four hours, baby wakes up and cries because it wants to be fed. Even if the baby sleeps longer, mama's boobs get engorged so we have to get up anyway. Our routine became bedtime around eleven or twelve at night, with feedings around four and eight. I go to work at 4:30 a.m. so getting up at odd hours wasn't too difficult. I did practically gave up hard liquor during the first month. You can't sleep off a whiskey drunk if you get up every four hours. After one to three drinks of beer or wine, I was usually wiped out anyway. In a strange way, I was getting healthier through the madness.

A week ago, Maria finally decided to take the training wheels off and go bare-breast for feedings. She had been using the shield most of the time with a couple attempts without each day. The shield is kind of tedious, and Donna Rose got thrush using it (yeast infection of the mouth). It basically made her tongue look like cottage cheese. It's a common infection for babies, and we received antibiotics to curb it.

With a little fussiness, Donna Rose is now a raw boob breast-feeder. It basically took two months to get to that magical beautiful mother-baby picture that all those health professionals show parents-to-be. I asked Maria once what her biggest accomplishment was in her life before the baby, and she said her first and second place finishes at the science fair. Being a breast-feeding mother blows that and all other accomplishments away.

As a father, I was pretty much at the sidelines for all of this. I still get up in the middle of the night with Maria to help change diapers and "keep her company," and now we are down to one night feeding (she sleeps five to eight hours now!). They say time flies with babies, and I will admit the second month was quicker than the first. It still feels like the last two months have been half a year.

If we had to do it over, we would still breast-feed our child, but I just wanted people to know the truth. It ain't easy. It's worth it, but it ain't easy. Of course, I'm only two months into being a parent, so I imagine I'll be saying that a lot over the next two decades.

Chris Jungle has a bottle of Woodford Reserve just waiting to be cracked open.