“Rehab Addict” star Nicole Curtis has taken her advocacy of normalizing breastfeeding to new heights. In a lengthy post on social media, the HGTV celebrity shared her difficult journey with breastfeeding, motherhood and the legal system.
In a post designed to celebrate Women’s Equality Day, the mother of one had some blunt things to say about her recent custody battle with her ex, Shane Maguire, and how it’s made her private life go very public.
“Did my great-grandmother ever think we'd be in a position having to fight for our rights as mothers ? Our world is turning backwards,” she wrote in a post on her Instagram. “People ask me what it's like to work in a male-dominated industry -piece of cake. Now ask me about the struggle of having my breasts discussed in an open court room, my child's name sold to tabloids, being court ordered to pump rather than feed my baby the only way he knows how.”
Curtis went on to explain that she’s been forced to pump her breasts in front of a court supervisor to prove, legally, that she cannot produce an adequate amount of milk from breast-pumping, and how that information was then shared with strangers throughout her custody hearing.
According to People, Curtis took up the cause of being a breastfeeding advocate thanks to her custody battle. Maguire sued for joint custody in 2016 and won. However, Maguire lives in Michigan, while Curtis and their son live in Minnesota. This proved a problem when Curtis was exclusively breastfeeding their son. Mcguire's lawyers and the court thought pumping would be an easy solution to their long-distance problem, but she maintained that the human body doesn’t just allow for that. Now, the star seems to have had enough and is taking to her social media to speak out.
As E! News notes, this isn’t the first time that she’s used her social media presence and following to share her motherhood and custody struggles with her fans.
“The worst part of all this? I'm not the only one,” she writes. “I never intended for my story to be public. I wanted my privacy, I asked for records to be sealed-I was laughed at. Now that its public, not by my doing, I'm berated for speaking out.”