Impossible Choices

The last time we nursed

These are the stories behind my photo project 3600 Hours.

A nursing mother will spend 1800 hours just feeding her baby for that first year. A pumping mother with a baby who cannot nurse will spent twice that, once for pumping and again for feeding ie 3600 Hours. My youngest, Edna was born with Down Syndrome and could not nurse. These are the images and stories from her first year of life where I pumped every single bottle.

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We lay together, her knees tucked beneath my rib cage. I stroked her cheek gently. I teased her with my nipple. White milk fell on her lips. She smacked them. I folded my breast into her mouth. She sucked and swallowed what filled the nipple shield but never pulled more from me. Her mouth fell open. Her cheeks could not hold me.

I spent five years nursing. I lay with each of my children pulling them into me for comfort and calories. I treasured it. I loathed it. I endured it. I missed it.

For Edna I sought help. In the lactation consultant’s office we found success. Her practiced hands kept my small one engaged. It was the bright morning star of possible.

I sat in the rocking chair. I made her comfortable. I used the pillow. I sat straight. I brought her to me. She lost her hold. I removed my shirt. I held her head. We tried again. The milk came too fast. She choked. I pumped some away. I used the shield. She swallowed and let go, already exhausted. I felt hope slip away.

She lay there in my lap in the dark. All the others long ago in bed. The house in stillness I turned away. I heard her cry from far away. Defeat. Failure. Exhaustion. Fatigue. The burning edges like fuzzy pixels around my heart and hands. What more could I be asked to do?

You haven’t really tried.

In all the ways we slipped together this felt too clunky. As she fatigued I sorrowed. It would take so much to help her learn. Hours I didn’t have. Strength I didn’t have. I should have known how but the weariness covered my arms and shoulders dragging me into despair. We had already been through so much.

You don’t have to, others don’t.

The advice one gives a stranger as if permission could alleviate the weight. What would she do, the one asking? Never give up, she thinks. My projection, my own worst enemy. Impossible choices. Impossible judgement perceived into reality.

The world rolled in on itself there in my chair. I could not teach Edna to nurse and be a mother to my four other children. For nine months I had laid in bed pregnant with her. For three weeks I had lived at the hospital NICU with her. I could not now be chained to a chair attempting to nurse her all day every day. I could not.

I looked down, she still cried in my lap. I gathered her in my arms and wrapped her around my neck. We breathed, the smell of sweat and milk smothered me. I pulled my knees to my chest. We folded into each other, comforting each other until we both stopped crying.

I warmed the bottle and fed her until she slept. I put my shirt back on and placed the breast pads inside my bra. I returned to the chair and turned on the pump. It’s light burned a hole through the dark. I sat and attached the apparatus to my chest holding it from wrist to elbow with one hand while resting my head in the other. We would never nurse again. I would never nurse again. I would feed her my milk but we would forever be separated by metal and plastic. The sorrows of every mother and wet nurse fell onto my chest, we mourned together the way of things. The roar of the pump flushed out the words my mind craved to bring. Silence, all but drowning me.

If you enjoyed this post you can read more 3600 Hours stories here.

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