It has been a fortnight of one year anniversaries for us; Alice’s birth, her first cuddles with family, her first bath, her homecoming. They were all such monumental events at the time and now, a year on, they are a sweet memory and a reminder of how far we’ve all come.
Well yesterday was probably the last memorable anniversary that I acknowledge with a sense of nostalgia; a year ago yesterday was when Alice had her first bottle and I gave up on my dream of exclusively breast feeding.
I won’t re-hash all the drama as I’ve already covered it in past posts. But here are the main points;
- I was terrified that Alice’s immune system was going to suffer and that I had put my baby at risk of SUDI because I didn’t ‘try hard enough’.
- I felt intense guilt from not being able to exclusively breastfeed, and I was painfully disappointed with myself for not being strong enough to cope with exhaustion as well as making enough milk for her. I was worried about the comments I would receive about my ‘decision’ from friends, other mothers, Plunket and the general public, and I was embarrassed to buy formula.
- Despite knowing better, I believed in my heart that the relationship I’d have with Alice would be jeopardised and I would never experience that all consuming bond of love that comes with breastfeeding and regular skin-to-skin contact.
- I basically felt like the world’s worst mother and that Alice deserved better.
Despite all this guilt and hurt and anxiety, life goes on. Alice saw to that. She was hungry, dammit, and then she was dirty, and then she was tired, and then she was hungry again. There is no time to wallow in the grief of shattered parenting dreams when a little person is demanding your attention. And days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months and maybe, after all, this whole bottle feeding business isn’t really that bad.
Well last night I was having a bath with Alice. She had been talking and singing non-stop for about two hours and had worn herself out so she sat on my knee, warm water up to her belly button, her head on my chest and her arms spread out to hold my arms. We sat like this for about fifteen minutes, with my cheek resting on the top of her head and my arms around her round, naked body. I was afraid to move in case I broke the spell. I was thinking to myself “My god, I have never been so in love as I am right at this minute.” And that’s when I remembered the anniversary.
I wish I could go back in time to when Alice was two weeks old and I was train wreck and tell myself that everything will be okay, honest.
I would tell myself that Alice doesn’t get so much as a cold before she’s one-year-old. There are sniffles with teeth but other than that, there will be no illnesses, no nasty bugs, no rashes or bad coughs or stressful trips to the doctor. I would tell myself that Alice’s immune system is A-grade top-notch stuff, and her health is not something I need to be overly concerned about. I will do enough worrying about germs without any added fear caused by not enough immune boosting breast milk.
If I could go back in time I would tell myself that I am well within my rights to rant and rave to any stranger who feels it’s their business to comment on the ‘decisions’ I make, and that I am allowed to give them a ten minute explanation of my feeding history and tell them that in future they should keep their comments to themselves because, in actual fact, their judgements damn well hurt.
I would tell myself that it’s okay to feel angry if healthcare professionals say things about not breastfeeding that make me feel guilty, and that when the national breastfeeding campaign says ‘breast is best’, I can add ‘but only if your boobs work’ for my own peace of mind.
But I would also tell myself that everyone I care about will be incredibly understanding and supportive, and that as time goes on you won’t care what strangers think, anyway. I would tell myself that one day you will go to town with pureed carrot and silver beet in your hair and milk vomit down the back of your shoulder and you won’t even know, let alone care (true story). Buying formula won’t even be on your radar and it was never on anyone else’s to begin with.
I will tell myself that by the time Alice is one-year-old, you will develop your own philosophy on breastfeeding and because of who you are and what you do, you will find yourself advocating for and reassuring mother’s who bottle-feed for whatever reason as well as those who breastfeed.
I will tell myself this story;
One day in late spring, I saw a ewe eating grass while she fed two “lambs” that were nearly as big as she was. They were so big they were kneeling as low as they could get and it still looked like they were lifting their mother’s back end off the grass. Their undocked tails were like woolly helicopter propellers and they were close enough that I could hear their murmurs of appreciation as they suckled greedily. I thought to myself – I wonder if anyone tuts at the ewe and says ‘your lambs are far too big to be breastfed. Time for cows milk, don’t you think?’
This story will make you think how sad it is, that society’s pressure to stop feeding is almost as great as the pressure to start, when there shouldn’t be any pressure at all. If I could go back in time I would say that just because you didn’t feed for as long as you would like, you will still have a philosophy of breastfeeding and you will share it with others who want to hear it, that your opinion is as valid as anyone else’s.
I will remind myself that I’d always said I’d feed until something stopped it – like Alice self-weaning or hormones or another baby. I did just that, it all just stopped sooner than I expected and that’s okay. Maybe with the next one, I will have the chance to feed until their old enough to ask for it, much to the disgusted horror of the other mothers at school. Ha ha! Take that!
Lastly I would tell myself that the fact that you’re so devastated says that you’re the perfect parent for Alice, and she couldn’t do any better. I would tell myself that it’s okay to be sad, to grieve for the loss of a chance to experience all that breastfeeding entails (including cold cabbage leaves and leaking in public) and to join the great, feminist sisterhood that feed in public just because they can. I would say that being sad is fine, but don’t for a second think that you are any less of a mother. Don’t be sad for that.
This is the final thing I’ll say about my breastfeeding journey. With Alice, anyway. The next little person will no doubt have their own unique feeding journey that will bring its own special set of challenges and triumphs and therefore a need to write about them. For now though, I’ve done my mourning, I’ve danced all I can at my one woman pity party, and now I see that I can celebrate where we’ve come from. I think I might rename it ‘the bottle-feeding journey’. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment