My husband knocked over a bottle of thawed milk that I was preparing for daycare the next day… Chaos followed. I was overcome with so much emotion that it even surprised me. He looked at me confused.
I could read his mind. He was wondering why I reacted as if the world were ending when I could just remove another pouch from the freezer and go on as if nothing happened. Honey, it’s not that simple.
I’m down to my last couple of weeks’ worth of frozen milk, if that. Each time I open the freezer to collect more stored away packages, I’m faced with the bittersweet feeling of relief and disappointment.
This part of my journey was tough. Before having my daughter, I had expectations of nursing her. I bought all of the breast feeding pillows, covers, nipple balms. I couldn’t have been more prepared – and I couldn’t have been more wrong about what my breastfeeding experience would actually be like.
The first few weeks after Journee was born, my milk wasn’t coming in. I’d lost so much blood during the birth that it was going to take a little more time for my body to catch back up. I tried so hard to make nursing work – for me, and for Journee. It was how I envisioned bonding with her in a way that no one else could. It didn’t help that she didn’t like to latch and when she did, she would suck so hard on my nipples that they’d crack.
Nursing wasn’t for us. Determined to still give my daughter this part of me that was only created for her, I decided to exclusively pump milk every day. In the early days, I was hooked up to my pump every two hours. At my peak, I was on the pump 8 times a day for at least 30 minutes trying to encourage my body to produce enough milk to feed my child. It was A LOT. It felt like a sacrifice of my body and of my sanity.
I would pump for hours, barely getting enough ounces to feed her two bottles of breast milk a day. Finally, after three months, I began making enough to take her off of formula and exclusively breastfeed her with my pumped milk. It was a huge milestone – and the beginning of a journey that would challenge me in many ways.
I set a goal to provide breastmilk to Journee for 12 months. That meant committing to being hooked up to a pump, and limited, several times each day. I was exhausted. I couldn’t leave home without worrying about missing a pump session and losing my supply in consequence. Travel was miserable. A decent night of sleep was unobtainable. Spending time with my girl was always interrupted by the sound of my pump alarm. My life seemed to revolve around the machine. But still, I pushed through.
Many times my husband and other family members asked, “why don’t you just stop.” An answer was always hard to articulate, but I think I’ve found the best way to frame it:
I didn’t want to fail at the first commitment that I made to my daughter.
Around 10 months, my body started giving up on me after picking up a couple of illnesses from Journee following her time at daycare. I once again struggled to produce. I wasn’t going to make it.
But I never said I would pump for a year. I said that I would feed her breastmilk for a year. And as I’m removing the packages from the freezer, I’m looking at the calendar. Will I fail? Will I make it and honor my first promise?
I’ve worked so hard and have given up so much to produce that liquid gold. It was a second full time job. Watching those milk bricks dwindle down to nothing is the equivalent of watching my life savings drain from my account. THAT’s why I cried when I saw my milk dripping down the counter. I’ve given my all to this. And it damn sure wasn’t easy. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But for her, I’d do anything.
I cried about the journey. About the unspilled milk. The hours hooked up to the pump only to get a few ounces in return, feeling betrayed by my body. The end of a journey both dreadful and beautiful. One of my greatest challenges in womanhood. One of my greatest accomplishments in motherhood.
