Breastfeeding is something I always knew I wanted to do when I became a mom. As a Muslim woman, our doctrine tells us that if we are able, breastfeeding for up to two years is beneficial for both the baby and the mother. I wasn’t certain of all the mechanics that came with the act of breastfeeding, or the possibility that sometimes babies may not latch right away and the act could be physically and mentally taxing. However, that set intention turned into a two-and-a-half year commitment that my son and I were fortunate to embark on — together.
I gave birth in 2017, just two weeks after my husband and I had moved to Poland, so it was really just the two of us figuring out how this new dynamic of our family would work. Parenthood as first-timers was very trial and error, but we both thought that breastfeeding would be good for our son. Having spoken to many women who breastfed, including my own mother, I was prepared to try to pump and bottle feed, with the hopes that my son would not be fully dependent on my having to be around all day and night. But, in the plot twist that is parenting, our son was diametrically opposed to the bottle, and even after feeding him whatever I could fill into the bottle, he’d still want to nurse on me.
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I didn’t know how to navigate his complete disdain for the bottle because I saw so many other moms whose babies loved it. My mom even told me that I was so attached to my bottle, it took my leaving it behind on a family trip for me to give it up. Nevertheless, the sound of my son’s cries of frustration made me think that maybe I wasn’t supposed to give him one, so I gave up trying. I had plenty of moms saying, “You have to keep at it,” but as I battled with postpartum blues, trying to accept the new role that I and my body were to play for this little person, and not having too many people around me to help, I gave in to what I felt he needed most — me.
My new normal was being with my son day and night, literally, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. By the time our son was 7 months old, we had traveled to more than three countries and multiple states. I would have to stop and breastfeed on the floor in the airport, on the plane, and even found myself popping a breast out running to a connecting flight because that’s just how it goes. Once my husband and I relocated to Cairo, where he and I originally met and where we were both working. He coached football at night, and I worked at an international school for about four or five hours a day, which often landed me with engorged breasts because my cramped hands just couldn’t manually pump the milk as often and as fast.
By the time I would return home, no matter how much milk I had left for my husband to give him, our son would be ready for me. But even through the sore nipples or extremely hard milked-filled breasts, I enjoyed some of the moments. I would watch him sleep and know that his little belly was full, or when he would nurse first thing in the morning, I felt as if I was helping him to get his boost of energy for the day. Being a new mom and pretty much winging the whole role, I found it was breastfeeding that gave me that one moment of joy that said, “You did something right.”
On the flip side, I found that I didn’t have much time to myself. There weren’t many moments that I could just go out and do something alone, or meet up with friends because either I would be getting a call that my son was screaming the house down or my breasts would be so full they’d leak through everything. I had come to realize that in the midst of my journey of breastfeeding, I was also trying to find myself again as a woman. I loved being a mother, but I wasn’t sure how to balance time for myself while knowing I was a never-ending supply of sustenance for my child.
It was in the first year of my breastfeeding journey that writing became my own form of solitude. I gave up the idea that I would be able to do a lot of things on my own with a breastfeeding newborn and living abroad with no family around — but I could write with him in my arms. I would take him with me to a cafe or Starbucks or anywhere that I could, to regain a balance of doing something that I have always enjoyed and went to school for. And this new journey became my muse.
I remember when my son began to get teeth, thinking that the journey would be over. But with the pain of his new porcelains, he still needed nursing as a comfort. To describe the physical pain of a baby biting down on your breasts to find that comfort, it’s like no other feeling in the world. Yet, I still accepted the metaphor that with every pain he felt, and I felt, I was his ease.
As we got closer to his second birthday, the thought of “This is it” kept going through my mind. I figured that if the kid could verbally identify my breasts by pointing and saying “boobs” while laughing his head off, that the journey was over. And yes, I tried leaving the house for hours at a time and even putting frozen cabbage in my sports bra, but the result only left me smelling like rotten veggies. No matter what other tricks of weaning existed — some moms told me to put hot sauce on my nipples, which horrified me — I just knew that I didn’t want to traumatize my son. I wanted weaning to be a mutual “no more.”
Breastfeeding for two-and-a-half years came with a lot of frustration and people making jokes that I’d be the mom with a breastfeeding kindergartner. Even so, I learned a greater insight about myself and my son — that he is comfortable doing things in his time and I will continue to love him, support him and be his comfort.
August 21, 2020 at 02:02AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/parenting/breastfeeding-two-year-old.html
Breastfeeding My Son Was a Long, Hard Journey, but We Took It Together - The New York Times
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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