From Breast to Bottle — marti esther

For over four months, I was the plate and I was the meal. I was the cup and drink. I am still the bed and cozy, the smile and laughter, and I have even been the womb and warmth. But I have now enlisted a little more help (isn’t it so hard to do that sometimes?) and I am no longer the plate or the cup. Although I do still make the perfect meal. To end all of this Collins-esque quibble, I should probably just outright say:

our nursing journey has ended.

I am sad but I am also liberated. It’s the poetry of parenthood; that I should be glad and tenderly broken-hearted. It feels like another knotch on this shiny new belt that will surely age beautifully amidst all of the pain and promise that is being Stevie’s mother. I want to look back at these fleeting, raucous years when I am worn and soft in all of the places that I have yet to let dull, and know that I stayed as present as I could. That I chose what was right for us time and time again; that I fought off every burdensome, needless, should-do in favor of showing my daughter the intelligence of instinct, the grace in trusting your gut.

It may seem that this is all much ado about something that is actually quite short-lived in the vastness of my future as a mother, and I see that. I have always tended to walk through life with a magnifying glass; studying the smallest of moments and quickest of seasons for profound meaning. Perhaps that is why I love poetry so much. It examines all of life with a reverent eye that sees even the most mundane of details as worthy of memorializing. And isn’t this great task of raising and sustaining another human being just that? They say “the days are long and the years are short,” and these monumentally long days are packed full of the most mundane and glorious moments I have ever known. Whatever the implication of writing an entire blog post about switching from boob to bottle might be (perhaps that I am — as we already know — entirely too sentimental?) it’s surely a memorial to the grandeur of parenthood.

Anyway, here we are about a month deep into the new kind of chaos that is pumping around the clock. Our midday kitchen countertops — littered with milk-tinted bottles, pump charging cords, and other accoutrements — is proof. A still life that pretty accurately represents the wild frontier that is the brain of a new mom who has decided to switch from breast to bottle. It’s a constant dance that has me attempting to remember when Stevie last ate, when I last ate, when I last pumped, for how long, and is her diaper dirty? Oh, it’s time to pump again. I forgot, the load of laundry has been sitting in the washing machine for far too long and needs another go to get the smell out but, ah, all the pump parts need washing as well and while I’m in the kitchen I now realize I am famished, but Stevie is exhausted and needs a nap. Oh, it’s time to pump… again.

I told Nick after the first brutal night of pump-feed-sleep-pump-feed-sleep that I had traded-in the trauma of breastfeeding for the exhaustion of pumping. I had to pick my battle and I chose the bottle to be my weapon. And maybe “trauma” sounds a tad dramatic but I assure you, it’s not. The tongue tie. The agony. The bleeding. The breast refusal. The screaming. The crying (on both of our parts). I don’t think I would have worked as hard and as long as I did to make that dream of breastfeeding come true, even if just for those fourth months, if it wasn’t for my people (thank you endlessly to our IBCLC, Kelly). It was extremely difficult.

But there are the good moments, the moments when we both worked together so effortlessly (although few and far between) and those memories remain so clear to me. They carry past it all. I can close my eyes and take a deep breath and recall the feeling so perfectly; her body, her closeness, her smell, the soft, the ineffable intimacy of it all, the oxytocin rush. It makes me overflow. I will cling to the deep well of that love-in-action forevermore. It overwhelms the moments that made me begin to dig into resentment in those last few weeks as I began to wonder if I was holding on for her or for me. It was for both of us, but my pride had the biggest stake in it all and I’m not one to let pride drive me. At least, I am trying very hard not to be that person.

With that, I can now say that I am so very happy to no longer be the plate or the cup. I now truly enjoy feeding Stevie in a way that lets us both relax together, in the moment. We sit, snug, and she excitedly pulls the bottle to her lips and drinks and we look at each other with a gladness just to be in each other’s company. Nick gets to do that, too. And so does my mama, Stevie’s grandma. And isn’t that exactly what it means to be “the cherry on top”? Such a sweet addition to an already deliciously precious thing.

I have the privilege of digging into this goodness that is raising Stevie every day, every moment. It is overwhelming in a way that surpasses language and it is deeply satisfying, too. I am doing my best to savor every bit of it and that means making a conscious decision everyday to weed out the things that make this all feel harder than it needs to be. I am feeding my daughter and I am loving her well and, in the process, trying to love myself well, too.

To every parent trying their damndest to find the best way to feed their babies: I see you. In those rare moments of quiet, take a deep breath, settle into your comfiest chair and try to tune out everything but the truest voice inside of you. You know what is best for your child. And you are allowed to make whatever changes you need to get a little more rest, a little more peace of mind, and (hopefully) a lot more joy.