“Breastfeeding: The
Agony and the Ecstacy”
By Cathi Hanauer
from Child of Mine, edited by Christina Baker Kline (Hyperion, 1997)
Before I got pregnant, and then once I did, I imagined motherhood something like this: I'm sitting in a rocker in an earth-colored robe smiling down at my baby, who is lying in my arms, mouth fastened to my breast, dreamily nursing away. My husband is preparing us tea with milk and honey, and a feeling of peace pervades the room—one that will go on for months, as I fully intend to nurse my baby for no less than a year. Virtually everything I've read and heard makes it clear it's the best gift you can give yourself and your child. And for me, breast-feeding seems the essence of motherhood.
Here's the reality: I'm sitting on the spit-up-stained sofabed trying to balance my wailing three-week-old daughter, Phoebe, atop two pillows on my C-sectioned lap. I'm preparing her, but really I'm more preparing myself, for her ninth or tenth meal of the day. However I told her, I'm in for some serious pain. First she'll clamp on with a grip astonishing for a person who could fit inside a shoe box. Then she'll suck off the scabs that have formed on my nipples since the last feeding, oh, two hours ago. For a good thirty seconds my milk will "let down"—something the books describe as a mildly tingling sensation but for me feels like having my entire upper body mashed in a vise. Sweat runs down my body, and I clamp the couch, or my husband, and yell, "Shit Shit Shit!" So much for the baby's virginal ears.
But then the pain of let-down passes, and then come the reasons I endure the rest. My baby drinks plentifully, her gorgeous eyes affixed to my face; hormones cruise through me like some unearthly drug; and everything feels right, and even rather wonderful—for a little while, anyway. I sit back and remind myself I'm providing the ultimate substance in the ultimate act: feeding my baby something from my own body that will grow and heal and nourish her. I am Steinbeck's Rose of Sharon, El Greco's Madonna, earning my place among nursing mothers of history and literature and art—not to mention my peers, since every smart, hip mom I know breast-feeds. Many do this while working full-time office jobs; they get up at 5:00 A.M. to nurse the baby on one breast while pumping the other for the nanny's feeding, they rush home at lunchtime to get in a round, they pump in office bathroom stalls when their breasts fill up at work. And still, the "F" word—formula—is barely spoken in their homes, let alone the actual substance allowed to grace their baby's lips. Well, it won't touch my baby's, either, I tell myself as I gear up to switch breasts. I am the perfect mom. Her I sit, breast-feeding.
What I try not to think about, as my daughter suckles, is the bowl of now-tepid water sitting next to me that I've been using to apply hot compresses to my breasts, which are huge and rock-hard, absurdly uneven, and crammed with gumball-sized lumps. To complement my bleeding nipples I'm also experiencing my first case of mastitis, a painful infection that results from some combination of clogged milk ducts, fatigue, and stress. If untreated it can lead to a breast abscess, which requires surgical removal and other such pleasantries. Treatment consists of antibiotics, compresses applied round the clock, and bed rest. As if.
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