the end of an era

June 6, 2008

When I walked into my first La Leche League meeting, I was seven months pregnant and had just discovered that I was having twins. I had not come to terms with the fact that my midwife would no longer consider a home birth, and went to the meeting with the intention of finding a midwife that would. As we went around the circle and introduced ourselves (mostly women with small babies or toddlers, the leaders, and a scattering of pregnant first time moms), I felt myself losing the little grip I had on my emotions and essentially burst into tears during my confession to the group that I had just found out I was having twins and was (obviously) FREAKING OUT. In an effort to be helpful, I was shown photos of women happily nursing twins. "See?", they said. "You can do it!". But instead of being comforted by the images, I was appalled by the photos. The image in my mind of a mother lovingly gazing down at her nursing baby was replaced by the image of a mom covered in babies. Drowning in babies. Being eaten alive by hungry, sweaty babies. I walked out of there even more terrified, but convinced that I would nurse these babies come hell or high water.

When the babies were born, I had an entourage of people coming in and out of the hospital room. Instead of the peaceful, private, festive home birth I had envisioned, I was lying in a fluorescent hospital room with a backless gown and a belly full of stitches from where they pulled my babies out. At least once an hour, someone would barge in with some forms we needed to sign, or some test they needed to perform, or some very important discussion about nothing that needed to happen right then, at 3 in the morning. When we were finally discharged 3 days later, I brought my babies home to a house full of sunshine and friends. People were still coming in and out at all hours, but instead of charts and forms to sign, they walked in with delicious home cooked meals and assorted dark beers "to help with my milk production". Despite the chaos of my Cuban family, newborns, and a revolving door of friends and midwives, I felt at peace. With a garage full of baby crap waiting to be unpacked, I was content with the knowledge that all these babies really needed was a warm bed and the milk from my breasts. So I sat in an arm chair, all day and most of the night, drinking water and Guiness and Mother's Milk tonic, and watched them as they nursed and nursed for hours and days.

Then, on the morning of day 6, the blisters came. By midday, my nipples were cracked and bleeding, and the moment the babies' lips touched my breasts, I felt an electric current of pain shoot from my nipple to my back. With two babies nursing around the clock, I had no time to heal so, suddenly, despite the lanolin and nipple shields, I was in total nursing hell. The friends that came over with that evening's meal were greeted by my frantic mom, trying to sterilize bottles so that I could pump the milk for the next feeding. Meanwhile, as they sat uncomfortably on the couch, I paced around tearfully (and topless) in nothing but pajama pants so my nipples could "air out". That night, my mother and I slept in one hour shifts, pumping and praying that we could get another 3 ounces out before a baby woke up ready to nurse. The thought of feeding them formula was absolutely not an option, so I pumped and pumped and pumped that entire night and into the next day.

Three cranial sacral massages and a lactation consultant later, we were told that they both had severe tongue tie (when the flap of skin that connects your tongue to the bottom of your mouth is too short) and were physically unable to nurse efficiently because they couldn't move their tongues properly. Apparently, back in the day, it was customary for midwives to grow a long pinky finger nail (a.k.a. a coke nail) so that they could just slice the babies' tongue tie at birth. However, since no one at the hospital even thought to check for this, I'd been nursing for over 3 weeks in horrible, searing pain, and was almost at the point of giving up. That very day, I made an appointment with the recommended ENT, got their tongue ties clipped (totally painless procedure that took, literally, three seconds), and nursed pain free from that moment on.

That was 19 months ago. For the past year and a half, I've pulled my breasts out in most every restaurant in Austin, a few in Miami, and a couple in Alabama. I've been glared at, sneered at, and smiled at as my kids have grown from newborns, to babies, to toddlers from the milk of my breasts. Unashamed and unapologetically, I've nursed them on demand at home and in public for the last year and a half.

But for the last few weeks, I have been really wanting my body back. When my son wakes up at 6 in the morning, desperate to nurse for at least 45 minutes, all I want is to go back to sleep and pretend that I don't hear him. But I don't. I get up, and bring him to bed with me, and nurse him until his sister wakes up an hour later. And the entire time, I'm gritting my teeth and praying that he'll fall asleep again. But he doesn't. And when I'm nursing them both and they start to push each other away and pull each other's hair, I pry their mouths from my breast and declare the session over. Instead of the beautiful bond we once had, I feel like nursing has become an obligation, and I would rather end it on a high note. So, yesterday, after slowly weaning them from all day, to just before/after bedtime and naps, I nursed them for the last time. I wanted to make it special so I stroked their heads and sang them songs and smelled their hair. My eyes welled up with tears as I realized that it was truly the end of an era for us. But my conviction was reinforced seconds later when Manu grabbed a fist full of Isa's hair and brought me back to the present.

Tonight, I put them to bed with no tears and no requests to nurse. Though we'd been talking about it for days, I'm still surprised at how cooperative they've been. No tantrums, no begging. Just like that, they're done. My breasts are swollen and painful as my body adjusts to the change. And I'm terrified of what the hormones will do to my heart. So if I seem a little more emotional than usual in the next couple of weeks, bear with me. I fully expect this to be harder on me than it is on them.