A Quinquennium of Milk
Motherhood is this steep learning curve. One minute your baby is tucked all warm inside a uterus, effortlessly accommodated, the next out they pop into the world. Their needs are still all on you (and your partner) but now they take thought and process to be met — and to top it off you haven’t slept in days.
Between my two kids I have breastfed babies for 5 years total. I weaned my second child this weekend and in reflecting back on the past 5 years I am feeling both celebratory and weepy. I was so ready to be done and I am so glad I was able to do it.
I remember my son’s 18 days in the NICU. Rocking myself behind a room divider curtain while I dispensed milk into an industrial strength pump. Him struggling to learn to breastfeed with a tube up his nose & finally bringing him home. Waking myself up to pump, wash dishes and fall asleep for seemingly few minutes to start it all over again.
The weeks of struggle to get back to breast. Crying because I thought it would never happen. Reading other mom’s stories and knowing it was possible. Finally getting it and spending what seemed like months on the couch with my baby, nursing him cuddled in my lap, and then sitting quietly with him passed out, sweet milk on his lips while my arms went numb.
How he grew long and round. The chunkiest baby I’d ever seen. The indent of his ear tattooed on my arm as I placed him gently in bed. I remember milk that healed illness, solved disagreements, pulled us close together and said, “I love you”.
How overtime he came to me for milk less and less and I was convinced there wasn’t any more in there, but he insisted there was and still wanted his mama milk as he fell to sleep.
The time he went to daycare at 18 months and on his first day came home with the stomach flu. How he nursed through it all and how I got sick as a dog, crawling to the bathroom after dislodging him from my nipple.
The time we went to a Christmas Eve mass with my dad and my two-year-old son cried at the top of his lungs “I want Mommy Milk!” And how I nursed him in the hall.
I remember how his brother’s growing body sapped all my energy and led to that final early morning nursing session. How I felt like I was abandoning him — so guilty about how I sick I was.
When our second arrived so healthy and strong, the nurse placed him in my arms, he suckled right away, and I was so overcome with joy it made me cry.
I remember my happiness with my second and balancing it with my love of my first. I remember reading dozens of chapter books with a newborn in my lap and a toddler at my side. How this baby seemed to nurse the entire day and the entire night. How he would wake every hour on the hour for months on end. How I nursed him through all of it.
I remember the times he was so sick with a cold he could hardly nurse, and I held him to my chest and sang until he slept.
I remember how he bit me, and I thought it was the end, but time healed the wound, and we nursed another year instead. I remember night weaning and how he wailed and how even after that he still woke up so many times a night, I was so tired I could barely think.
And then we nursed less and less until there was only one left and how we said goodbye and I was the one to look back.
Breastfeeding has many great benefits for you and baby, but it is not the only way, and it is not the best way for some families. Please know — fed is best.
If you find yourself needing support with breastfeeding, there are many great resources out there. La Leche League has a great website, local groups that get together and chat, as well as Facebook groups.
KellyMom is another great resource to expand your breastfeeding knowledge, i.e. is this thing my kids doing normal?
Your hospital and/or pediatrician can also connect you with a local lactation consultant.
