Moo!

My dad, coming into the room, looked a bit mystified, and asked, "Is it a metronome?" I laughed and laughed, as the yellow arm of my breast pump went in and out with its irritating hiss. This is a sound I'll be hearing for a good long time, so I figure I'd better accept it. There are many things that I'm grateful for, which I'll detail in a minute, but first...

I feel like a cow, and not just because I weigh 25 pounds more than I'd like to. It is bizarre to hook yourself up to a machine that extracts milk from your body. This is simply one in a long train of bizarre things having to do with pregnancy and birth, of course, but definitely one of the weirdest. Seeing my very sensitive pink parts being stretched out like taffy in the pump's plastic flanges after spending most of my life feeling fairly protective of that part of my anatomy provides the opportunity for one of many moments in which I start to realize just how true it is that I'll willingly do things for my daughter I'd never remotely consider doing for anyone else.

It's amazing how much of the day gets taken up by either breastfeeding or pumping to provide milk for the baby. My milk supply is much, much greater in the morning. So, when I wake up it's a choice: shall I creep out of bed, hoping not to wake the baby so that I can pump a large amount of milk, knowing it's pretty likely that I'll still have enough left with which to feed her when she wakes up; or should I wake her up now and feed her, knowing that if she wakes up while I'm pumping I'm likely to get a fraction of the milk I need because I'll have to stop partway through in order to stop the screaming? hmmm..... which risk do I want to take today? If I don't pump first thing, then I have to scramble to somehow fit it in between feedings, work, cleaning the house, cleaning the baby, etc. That means getting her fed and waiting for enough milk to have built up to then pump long enough before she's hungry again. etc etc etc. I didn't get it before I had a kid. I will say this a million more times this year and every year, I am sure. I really didn't get how challenging the logistics of feeding and changing the baby would be. It amazes me.

The whole experience of nursing a baby has been incredible. I feared that I might feel weird about it. After all, our culture so extremely sexualizes women's breasts that I have never been able to really view them in any other light. But from the moment that my newly born daughter first started rooting around for them (a mere hour after her birth), I have felt the other powerful dimension, which is that they are there to provide sustenance, warmth, and comfort for my baby. Nursing now feels like the most natural thing in the world, and I have a lot of trouble understanding why it bugs anyone to think about or see. I got a long, protracted and nasty stare from a woman a few weeks ago when I was feeding Hazel at the arboretum (under a boob hider, no less). However, as one wonderful mother in our PEPS group says, "I truly don't want to offend you, so if you're uncomfortable, please do look away." I have started worrying less about what people think, and am glad to be able to feed the baby pretty much wherever we are these days.

Anyway, the things for which I am grateful are as follows: a) I have gotten past the severe pain I experienced in the first few weeks of attempting to breast-feed and pump; b) I have a good pump, the first 3 months' rental of which is paid for by my insurance; c) I have a sufficient milk supply to both nurse my baby and also to pump enough milk for night-time feedings; d) I have a wonderful partner who uncomplainingly gets up to feed the baby every night 1 to 3 times a night so I can sleep (except, with insomnia, I don't, and then I feel guilty :-(); and e) my baby will happily both nurse and take a bottle, so I can feed her and so can anyone else who's caring for her.

And now I shall go attempt to get some sleep so that tomorrow I can care for my daughter, teach, practice, and live life with some small degree of mental acuity.