Milk

Last night I decided I was done pumping. The girls are a little over three months old and I've been pumping every day since they were born, though less and less each day. In the beginning I pumped every two hours because I wanted so badly to establish a good supply so I'd be able to feed them both. I didn't have enough for my big kids when they were little and it made me feel bad.  My breasts ache right now. It's been more than 24 hours since I've hooked myself up to the hospital-grade pump, though I've nursed my youngest since then. She's the only one who breastfeeds. With my first set of twins, my daughter was the only one who nursed. My son did it once after many attempts and I thought we'd cracked the code and would do it from then on but that wasn't the case. He was a bottle guy. My heart aches too as I try to find the words to describe my experience.

I wrote that paragraph last Friday morning but stopped because. Because I had paid work to do. And because I wanted to take time to live the experience of letting go of breastfeeding before writing about it. Ceremony is important and my heart told me there was mourning to do. I imagined sitting outside, quietly nursing Daphne, paying attention to the sensations because soon they'd be gone. But what really happened is I had a weekend full of mothering and housework and swimming and birthday party and I didn't spend any time focused on the end of nursing at all.

Luckily my body did what it needed to do and by paying attention I've been able to feel myself letting go. The first night I leaked a puddle into the green sheets on our bed. The first day I had a couple moments of tightness, hardness, slight pain. I nursed Daphne and it went away. I nursed her very early this morning but haven't since then and my breasts feel fine. My silhouette shows that I'm not back to non-nursing size but I don't feel full or uncomfortable. I'm changing, day by day.

Before I became a mother I actually dreamed of nursing. It was nights like those that made me believe that the doctors were wrong and that I would someday give birth. I could feel it in my body--the pulling sensation, the warmth of the heavy body in my arms, laying against my chest. In reality, I never really connected with the experience like I thought I would.

I remember Lily's face the first time I put her to my breast. She looked so tiny and her eyes grew wide in amazement as she looked up over the mountain of my breast. Her tiny mouth, opened as wide as she could hold it, closed over my nipple and she stayed there, not nursing. That was our first attempt. It took many more tries before milk was exchanged. Those first few days in the NICU I hooked myself up to the pump in an effort to fill the tiniest of vials, smaller than my pinkie finger. A few drops splashed in and we used a syringe to suck up the drops left behind--so much effort to capture the precious colostrum. Every day I walked myself into the tiny pumping room down a short, hidden hallway in the NICU. Sometimes I sat with other mamas, sometimes I sat alone. Noon, 2 am, 7pm. The other blended together, the radio station played the same Top 40, I scrolled through articles and blogs on my phone, and I pumped. We grew to recognize one another as the days passed and sometimes we'd share stories or tears. It was a funny little place, an initiation ritual none of us wanted but one we became grateful for as we settled into our new lives.

I felt like a failure more than once. Not enough milk. I hated having to supplement with formula but it quickly became normal. I guess I thought once we got home we'd all settle into the nursing rhythm--I pictured myself tandem nursing. Turns out Cyrus preferred to eat without being touched so he'd lay on the couch with a bottle propped up (a no no in the baby world but an everyday occurrence in our twin household). My husband and I mixed many, many bottles of formula and we were able to split the nights, each getting some sleep because I wasn't the only one feeding. It worked.

When both Cleo and Daphne latched on the day they were born I thought we'd have the breastfeeding experience I'd always imagined. But no, again. Maybe it's because in the NICU they bottle-feed and the babies were focused on that. (Of course it's possible that if I'd been present for every feeding we could have tried breastfeeding every time but that was not to be). Whatever the reason, I settled into pumping again, though this time on my own on the couch at night. I ferried bottles of milk to the hospital. This time I felt proud that I was filling up their freezer. I was sure I'd have stores to last a year or so when we got home. But I pumped less and less, we went through the freezer bags at home and I started to think about stopping.

The first time my milk dried up because I got pregnant again. Before I knew I was pregnant I thought my milk was just drying up for no reason and I felt so sad. I wasn't ready to stop. But this time I started thinking about it, gently and with no pressure, just with curious. Maybe it was time to stop. It felt early but it also felt. . .ok.

So on Thursday as I sat on the couch, sinking into the stained cushions happily watching my favorite TV shows, I thought about getting up to get the pump pieces from the drying rack. And then I decided I was done. It felt right.

I've been more of a pumping mama than a breastfeeding mama. That's just how my story has turned out. Instead of quiet nights with a dozing newborn, I've sat alone on the couch listening to the quiet hum and hiss of the Medela. It's allowed me moments of quiet privacy when I needed them. It's invited me to sit down and rest. It's allowed me to fill my babies' bellies with warm breast milk, all four of them. And in the next few days I will be done forever.