My baby boy rested in my arms, relaxed and comforted while I fed him his first bottle. I studied his little face, my own pale & expression unmoving, while inside, I felt like I was thrashing around in my despair. Anguish, honestly. That’s what I felt, in my bones. How is this happening?
My tiny baby, my most important responsibility.
How has he been hungry for weeks, months, and I didn’t know each time he was at my breast yearning for nourishment he was greeted only with disappointment? How did I not know my milk was drying up?
Breastfeeding was difficult in ways I wouldn’t have imagined. Each time I cradled him in my arms to feed him, I found ugly feelings bubbling up: anger, frustration, confusion. Why is this so difficult? Why won’t he stay latched?
Emerson spent 4 months as a tender baby crying. When we realized that his needs weren’t being met, his warm tears stopped falling down his soft cheeks and instead, I was the one constantly crying.
How did I fail you? And so young? And in such an important way? His thinning limbs and face haunted me. The memories of his life shifted suddenly, I had a new lens to look upon on our time together with, and it wasn’t a story I could stomach. I turned over the thoughts, my nausea turning with them.
A mother, unknowingly starving her child, a child she loved desperately. Emerson cried out, literally, each day for help, and I didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. Instead, I felt lost, disoriented by this experience and these cries I couldn’t decipher.
I’m the oldest sister and second child in a family with eleven children. I know my upbringing affects my worldview, but there are some especially obvious ways having so many younger siblings has affected my life. I’ve noticed it most prominently in my motherhood.
I was 19 years old when my youngest sister was born. I imagined this gave me an advantage entering motherhood, like I had a little more insight into how to handle life with babies, because I’d seen it up close; because I was an adult when my mom had a newborn. And in some ways, it did make for a more relaxed entrance into mothering.
Well, actually, that first week I did worry — what if I accidentally suffocate him while breastfeeding? Can I get this onesie on without breaking his arm?!
That postpartum anxiety settled down pretty quickly though, and we got into a routine that felt right. It felt… natural, simple. Motherhood had more responsibility than my previous life, but I didn’t feel nervous.
I didn’t realize I had a streak of naivety and arrogance. I had no inkling of how negatively it would impact my first two years as a mom.
I hope you’ll forgive my former self for her judgements, and that you know I share them while still carrying a bit of shame: I assumed when mothers couldn’t breastfeed, it’s because they didn’t try hard enough. They were quitters.
My mom nursed 11 babies into toddlerhood and it was so simple it wasn’t even a conversation we had. It was just natural, expected.
I believed it would be that way for me. Easy, not even worth talking about because it’s just our design. Why are people celebrating with “I made it a year!” breastfeeding posts?
When breastfeeding wasn’t what I expected, I was shocked— mortified even.
Back to back actually, my breastfeeding journeys with my first couple of boys felt like two distinct, tragic stories, filled with a lot of fear, confusion, and a lot of tears.
A year before I had my own children at all, my sister-in-law told me she bought a scale so she could weigh her son before and after feeding sessions; so she could have some peace of mind.
I didn’t even know how to respond to that. After my many years in a home with breastfed babies, without the need for any tools of that sort, it seemed so preposterous— How would you not know if your baby was getting enough to eat?
Pride comes before a fall. Was this why my baby suffered? So I would learn empathy, so in my experience I would drop my own judgements and understand grace?
Emerson is two and half years old now and in church this morning, I found those same, painful tears welling up again in my eyes.
These are the thoughts that comfort me: God sees, has always seen, and will always see, my children’s needs. There will be times I fail, but He loves them even more than I ever could. Emerson is dear to God’s heart, as he is in mine. And I am forgiven for my failures. I never could be the perfect provider for their every need, I just had to experience that painful reality with a younger child than I would’ve expected.
So I’ll keep putting down the guilt I pick up. I’ll keep laying it down, picking up peace again, and trusting in the Ultimate Provider to be here to help me raise these children.
Above: Emerson, 2 months old
Below: Emerson, 4.5 months old.
