Written February 21, 2014
Breastfeeding has never been a full source of nourishment for Alice, but I mix-fed for three and a half months because it was a comfort. I was comforted knowing Alice was getting antibodies and nutrients, Alice was comforted with a little snack when we were out and she was tired, and we were both comforted by the closeness that breastfeeding brings.
Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but about a week ago was the last time I breastfed Alice. Breastfeeding had dwindled to the early morning feed anyway, but one morning she slept in, waking up so hungry she couldn’t latch properly and needed the bottle straight away. Alice sleeps for 10 hours or more every night, so who could blame her? It wasn’t until the next morning, when I went to make her bottle that I realised it had been 48 hours since I’d breastfed and I had nothing more to give her.
If I had known that time was going to be our last time, I would have stroked her hair, looked lovingly at her sweet face, and not hurried in my eagerness to get back to bed. This went straight into my little bag of guilt that I carry labelled “not being able to breastfeed my daughter”. (I dip in to it less than I used to these days. Some days it feels like someone dropped a brick in there, but most days I can screw it up and shove it in my back pocket.)
My breastfeeding journey has been an emotional merry-go-round. It started wonderfully, breastfeeding my baby when she was minutes old after she had wriggled her way down from my upper chest on her own. Then I felt shock, and guilt, and overwhelming sadness. I felt relief a few days after I started bottle-feeding, when I readjusted my perception of what breastfeeding was going to mean for us; I started thinking of it as a health boost for Alice and a special bonding time for the both of us.
And now that I’m not feeding Alice at all, anger with my body is another emotion I can add to this list. When I realised I had fed her for the last time, I felt a tiny, bitter seed take root in my brain when I thought “My body is useless. Of course I can’t breastfeed, my body has never done what I’ve wanted it to do before, why would it start now?”
Good old hypnobirthing techniques. A year or so ago I would have accepted this little thought as truth, as I have my whole life. I would have cultivated that bitter little seed to grow a garden of noxious thoughts about myself. But using the same guided meditation techniques I used in pregnancy, I quickly recognised this as a thought that is hurtful and unhelpful. I reminded myself of some actual truths and suffocated that poisonous little seedling.
My body grew a person. A healthy, beautiful person that came in to the world because my body birthed her. Not only that, my body birthed her like a pro, as if it had been built for that very purpose and had been birthing babies forever.
Anger at my body lasted for a very, very short time. I still feel a little sadness that I am no longer breastfeeding, but that’s more because I feel I am going to miss out on experiences rather than feeling like a failure. My body allows me to cuddle and carry and kiss Alice, and it holds the mind and soul of a mother. I wouldn't say I love my body but I am grateful, and I see that now.
Finishing thought: if our friends spoke to us how we speak to ourselves, would we still be friends with them? Be extra kind to yourself.
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