A memory

Baby #1: trial and error...

I'm sitting on the examination table at my doctor's office, crinkly paper under my legs. My wonderful midwife is asking me questions about the baby. I'm nodding. I'm saying things.

"And is he eating okay, having wet diapers?" she asked, hopefully.

"Oh yes, he's gained almost 8 pounds already! He's doing great..." I flashed what I hoped looked like a smile.

Then I looked in her eyes. Her sweet, all-knowing eyes, and my own started to tear up.

I blurted out, "But I'm not doing so good..." I was crying now. I couldn't help it anymore than I could help breathing.

She looked at me again and asked softly for me to tell her what had been going on. I let it out like the waters pouring over a levee, cresting over the earth. I told her about how I wasn't sleeping, and how the baby still refused to latch on. How I was pumping every 3 hours around the clock. He was only six weeks old but I felt like I had been doing this for a hundred years. I was anxious and tired and not eating and not sleeping and angry and guilt-ridden.

And it felt so good to tell someone that. I waited on the table expectantly. Waited for the suggestions and the "try this" and "try thats." But mostly, I waited for my midwife to finally crack the code on WHAT WAS WRONG. She had experience, after all.

"You know," she said, leaning in conspiratorially,"I hear way more stories like yours than the opposite." I stared at her. Was she putting me on?

"Women just don't want to talk about it, so everyone thinks it's usually easy and comes naturally," she continued. I nodded, Yes, I know.

"You gave it your best try. You worked hard," she said, holding my gaze. "And you have a healthy, thriving baby. Now you have choices. You can continue pumping exclusively, you can pump occasionally, you can quit altogether."

And this is why I'd really come. My mother could say it, my husband could say it; my best friend, sister-in-law, and even my father, could say it. But until my midwife said it -- until she gave me permission to stop trying at all costs -- I couldn't hear it. She gave me permission to choose a direction that would make my life easier, not harder. Make my nights easier, not worse. And she reminded me that all of my decisions, all of those choices, were the best for my baby--no matter what others might say.

Fast forward six more weeks. Six more weeks of pumping exclusively. I made a choice I could live with, but it cost me. And then the weekend before I went back to work full-time, that 12 week old baby latched on just to show me who was really in charge. My first lesson as a new mother, writ large on my body.

Here we go...