It wasn't until I was five months pregnant and working on a baby registry at Target that I even thought about the fact that I would have to feed this child. I knew that the doctor would cut the cord after my baby (lovingly called Hummingbird) was born and then (s)he would look to me for food. And I had a choice to make. I was flush, embarrassed, and honestly weirded out by the thought of the actual act of breastfeeding. I was thinking about all of this while my mom was asking me, "Do you want to register for a breastpump?" What? A pump? For breasts? What the what? I gave a quick, "Uh, yeah? I guess so." I held the scanner at safe distance and heard the beep. I knew that I had successfully registered for something in the breastpump section, so I moved on and began scanning tiny bath accessories. Trying not think about the whole feeding thing for a while.
When I was a kid, my grandparents had a dairy farm. I spent many summer evenings talking to my grandma as hundreds of cattle moved through shiny mechanical gates, into neat lines. My grandma would diligently spray each utter with iodine and wipe them a towel then throw on the four pronged automatic milker. I would stand there and watch as pint after pint of fresh, white milk moved through the lines. I was going to be a dairy cow. Just without my grandma to spray me down.
So I thought some more and worked up enough lady balls to start asking questions. I asked my mom and what my siblings and I ate. I learned that she nursed us all for 2 months and then like clockwork, her milk dried up and we did formula from there on out. I asked some other family members and friends and heard so many different feeding strategies. But, I still felt weird.
As the months drew past and I got larger and closer to meeting my kiddo, I started to feel a change a-brewin'. I think it had largely to do with my getting larger. The more my body started to look like it wasn't mine anymore, the more it seemed to belong to the baby. Like the thought of nursing this child would be okay, because those weren't really my cans down there anyway. They were, ah, changing, and it was all for the baby. Whatever was in there, wasn't mine and I was okay with sharing it.
I, like other moms, faced some challenges when actually beginning the whole nursing buidness, but within a few short weeks, we hit our stride. Then I went back to work and started pumping 3 or 4 times a day. My little guy had to have formula to supplement his growing appetite. And as the months wore on, he was needing more formula and I was producing less milk. Summer came and we quickly found ourselves just nursing in the morning and at night. The amount of calories he was getting was dismal I am sure, but I felt like I had to this. I had set goals for myself. I was going to nurse this baby until he was 11 months old and I went back to work. 11 months, dangit.
Well, how naive am I to make plans without consulting the baby? He woke up one morning and REFUSED to nurse. What does that look like? It looks like full-on scream-crying, flailing, pushing away with real tears, protest. Again at nightime. Again the next night.
And then it was done.
He voiced his opinion and I heard it loud and clear. I just didn't want to hear it. I wanted to meet my goal. I wanted to still be his mama that could make food for him that was healthy and good for the heart. I wanted to give him immunity powers. I realized that this thing, this dairy cow, saggy boobed thing, was something that I wanted. I was so scared of it just a year before and now I was crying that it was all over.
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