Anatomy of a mother

I'm a stay-at-home mother to two kids under 5, a writer, runner and everything in between.

Teas and tinctures and tears

Like many expectant mothers, I had great aspirations for how I would feed the baby in my burgeoning belly once he made his grand entrance. I would pull him out after a couple of hours of laboring and he would suckle immediately at my breast. I looked down my nose at friends who formula-fed, just knowing (with the disdain that only an expectant first-time mother can have) that I would make better decisions for my baby’s health. 

Reality about my birthing situation (and subsequent feeding decisions) sunk in not when the PUPS rash on my belly was so bad that my doctor decided to induce me after 48 hours of sleeplessness, and not when I finally clutched the hand of my nurse after a few hours of Pitocin-induced labor and begged for an epidural. No, reality sunk in when my water broke tinged with meconium and I was told he’d need to be examined immediately after his birth. I thought, as long as he’s healthy, we’ll sort the feeding out later. 

He ended up latching on once we got started about an hour after his birth and stayed there for what seemed like weeks. My nipples were raw and cracked and he never seemed to be sated. But I was happy for the choice that I had made when we were socked in by not one, but two snowstorms that winter and I didn’t have to make the run to the grocery store for formula. For me, it was about convenience and about feeling I was doing right by my child. it also helped that the 75 pounds I had gained during my pregnancy were coming off steadily as the months passed. 

Then, when he was four months old, I returned to work, armed with my black Medela bag, ice packs and determination. 

I’d spend my lunch hour in a windowless top-floor room with what was supposed to be a “peaceful” picture of a park. There was a conference phone in the room too, so that I could take calls if needed, although I could only imagine having to put a call on mute so that I could turn on the pump. Most of the time, I spent playing games on my iPhone with one hand while clutching the plastic cone to my breast, willing more milk to come out. I consumed Fenugreek by the fistful, and Mother’s Milk tea by the gallon, and still, I was barely eking out 12 oz. over a day. Since that was far less than my strictly breastfed baby needed (according to the day care workers, he cried all day because he was hungry…which only added to my stress and frustration and lack of production), we ended up giving him a mixture of formula and breastmilk. I still spent hours in the “pumping” room, now alternating times with another new mother, but the bigger he got, the less milk I got. 

Finally, I made the decision to wean completely. Spending two hours pumping every day so that I could get a 4 oz. bottle just didn’t make sense to me anymore. So, with lots and lots of tears and guilt and hormones, he was weaned from the breast. 

When I found out I was pregnant with my second child, I vowed to do things differently. I would be staying at home with the kids at that point, so pumping wasn’t going to be as much of a necessity. When my daughter was born, I pulled her up to my chest and she nursed immediately. And she stayed there for months. She was an active nurser and a constant nurser, so much so that it was hard for my husband to spend time with her in the evenings. 

In the interest of bonding time, I decided to pump her evening bottle so that he could feed her and so that I could get time alone with my oldest. This plan worked well for a couple of months until the one evening I was too tired to pump and decided to nurse her to sleep. I’ll never forget her little face as she started to suckle and then spit my nipple out. 

I had read about nursing strikes and I was determined to get her to continue to nurse until the magical “one year” mark. So, again, I tried the Fenugreek, the Mother’s Milk and pulled out the Medela for use during naptimes. I was a pumping maniac again and for what? 4 oz. 

So, after consultation with the pediatrician, we decided it was okay to make the switch directly to cow’s milk, thereby cutting out the formula switch-over and making my life a little easier, since both kids would be drinking from the same carton. 

Today, I’m sitting in my office, over a year after my baby took her last nurse, listening to the eldest play a game with his train and the youngest play with every one of the Little People that we’ve accumulated in the house. I’m re-reading the words above about nursing and chuckling a little bit about how consumed I was with breastfeeding. 

I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor of the nursery with my husband and son, just weeping about how much I was letting my child down because I was “giving up”. Why couldn’t I be one of those moms who was able to nurse until her child was happily running around the playground? Why wasn’t my milk supply as abundant as my friend’s, who was able to pump and freeze and store months of milk in advance? Don’t even get me started about the daycare guilt with my first-born. 

And now, I look at my smart, well-adjusted kids and I wonder what all of that stress and anxiety was for. Sure, I had read all of the literature on the benefits of breastfeeding for moms and babies and I know that I made the right choices for my family. But I still harbored (and still do, when the talk on the playground among the moms turns to birth stories and nursing, as it does at this age) such guilt about stopping nursing when I did. I felt like it was this ultimate failure on my part and that despite my attention to dye-free diapers and organic homemade baby food as they got older, that I had somehow done wrong. 

Breastfeeding was an amazing experience with both of my kids that I will never forget. It was our time to be quiet, to stare into each others’ eyes and learn the roadmaps of each others’ faces. A time that, as they have grown into toddlers and preschoolers, we have far less of. There are days that I miss that closeness, especially when tantrums (and plates of food) are being thrown all over the house.

Do I regret my decision to breastfeed and wean? Ultimately, after years of watching my kids grow and thrive, no. Before the child is even thrust into the world you make all of these weighted decisions about delivery and diapers and feeding, and from the second they come out of your body, you are second-guessing every move you make. And at some point, for sheer sanity alone, you need to trust that what you’re doing, and what you’ve done, is absolutely right.