Mothering
By Annie N.
You’re shaking uncontrollably, alternating between flu-like chills and sheet-drenching sweats. You call your obstetrician’s office frantically and learn that this, in fact, is normal after childbirth. Apparently, your hormones are crashing, and you are left to wonder what other mysteries await you. What will it feel like when your milk comes in? You wake up the next day and your breasts, no longer your own, are hard, in pain, and leaking. Here we go. You proudly picture yourself joining the ranks of other mother mammals. Just like how your body inherently knew how to create and grow a human, it has this part all mapped out, too.
Your baby is contentedly eating as you learn that this life-giving act also stimulates uterine contractions, as if you hadn’t gotten your share of those while you paced the house for three sleepless nights of prodromal labor. The contractions wane as the days go by, but here come the bloody, chapped nipples. You dig your heels into the carpet, anchoring them to the floor to steel yourself during latching, trying your best to emulate the pictures in the paperwork the hospital gave you. You scroll Instagram during a night feed and come across a photo of Gisele Bundchen, in all her supermodel glory, calmly breastfeeding with one hand while a team of stylists attends to her hair and makeup. You hurl your phone across the room with surprising force. There’s now a dent in the gender-neutral pale-yellow wall. You’ll have to fix that later.
You discover lanolin cream and start smothering it on before and after feedings. This stuff, a gift from the gods, saves you and you get some of your confidence back. You start putting the lanolin on your dry hands and lips, sometimes even your elbows. You’re the Greek dad with the Windex. Hormonal zit? Eczema patch? Try some lanolin. Doorknob jammed? Give the ol’ lanolin a try. You start enjoying breastfeeding now. You track all your feeds in a journal, making sure to write down which side you fed from last. You hold your baby’s chubby, pink hand and listen to her gentle suckling noises, watching her gain sustenance from your own body. Is there anything more mind-blowing? You pick her up gingerly and rub her back in a circular motion to burp her, running your cheek back and forth against her fuzzy head, inhaling her sweet smell. What is that smell? It gives you an unparalleled high and erases all the hard parts.
Months go by and you learn you are susceptible to clogged ducts. Something about having fatty milk, your obstetrician says. If you sleep on your side or wear a bra that’s too tight or go too long in-between feeds, you get hard, red, painful lumps. You dive down the rabbit-hole of internet advice and try using a wide-toothed comb for massage, heating pads before and after feeds, taking a hot shower. You abandon sanity briefly and feed your baby on all fours to harness the power of gravity. You even read in a breastfeeding book to lance the clogged part of your nipple with a sterilized needle to relieve the plugged duct. What in the name of lanolin? No one warned you you’d wind up taking a needle to your nipple in the middle of the night by yourself, and yet here you are.
Years go by and your sister gets diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40. Your mom had it too, so did your grandmother. Based on genetic testing and family history, the breast surgeon indicates that your chances of getting breast cancer are well over 50%. She says a bilateral mastectomy will decrease your chances to 1%. She uses thick, black permanent marker to write this all out for you, in case you’re the type who needs visuals to make life decisions (you are). Never one to roll the dice, you consent to the surgery. You’re making a rational decision like a real adult.
You wake up, cotton-mouthed and loopy from the anesthesia. You’re convinced you’re shopping for billowy tops at J. Crew. You look around, hear the beeps of the machines and the gentle, hushed tones of the nurses, and you remember you’re in the hospital, in the familiar wing that used to be labor and delivery. The last time you wore this blue and green-patterned hospital gown, you fancied yourself quite the expert as you joyfully unsnapped it to breastfeed your second baby. You cautiously look down at your chest and this time, it’s covered by a pink Velcro sports bra. There are drains protruding from either side of your chest with bulbs on the ends, already filled with bloody liquid. It feels as if someone hurled a giant boulder at you and your chest caught the brunt of it. The nurse helping you is so kind and you need someone’s kindness so badly, you start crying. You ask her name and she turns and responds, “Hope.”
You fall into a hauntingly familiar pattern of milking your drains to prevent clogs of tissue. You write down the exact amounts expelled from each drain in your daily logs. You sleep sitting up, bracing yourself for the crushing pain anytime you adjust your position. You wiggle like an inchworm caught in the heat of the midday sun to get out of bed. In a cruel twist, you feel like you’re on the constant verge of the tingling electric shocks that signal letdown. You even wake up from a groggy nap, convinced you’re leaking precious breastmilk. You try not to linger too long at the mirror, not to take too much notice of the way clothing drapes you now. You worry that you’ve had a fever since the day of your surgery. You take the antibiotic prescribed, the same one you took the time you got mastitis. You do all of this, and you’d do more, infinitely more. Your girls are no longer babies, but they need you, they always will. You’re their mother, after all.
Annie N. lives in Virginia with her husband, two daughters, and a Labrador Retriever. Her writing has previously been published in The Blue Nib.