I don’t think I was ever really good at breastfeeding my son. In the beginning, it was full of unexpected trauma. I remember being shocked at how painful those first weeks were, as he and I would wrestle into nursing position, a clumsy maneuvering of clothing and bodies which would leave me shaking and in a deep sweat. Our uptight dance was far from the picture I had imagined of a serene bonding experience with my newborn. I was unprepared for the searing pain each time he latched on, or for his frustration and anger at milk that would come too quickly, or not at all.
Luckily for us (and I do think a good deal of it is luck), it got easier. We carefully and painstakingly learned together, practicing until it became more casual, until there came a time when I felt confident enough to take him out in public, knowing that if he were to get hungry I’d be able to feed him without rearranging my entire wardrobe. It got easier, much easier, but I can’t say it was ever entirely relaxing. I never could drift off to sleep with him at my breast, contentedly sucking away. Rather, early morning nursing sessions would find me exhausted but wide awake, waiting impatiently for him to fall back asleep. Often, he would cry out in hunger but still refuse the breast. Or, nursing would leave him restless and fidgeting, rather than peaceful and dozing.
Eventually, though, I began to get a feel for nuzzling his little head in the crook of my arm, wrapping one of his skinny arms around my back, feeling the rush of milk, warm and full, as he drank, and a familiar release as I let my body fold gently back into the rocking chair. His eyes would droop closed and then open and close again, and mesmerized, I would watch him slowly drift to sleep in my arms and feel myself in the presence of a sublime moment.
When other mothers with toddlers Jack’s age began weaning, I found myself continuing to nurse. Maybe because it had been so hard won for so long that I felt that I couldn’t quit, now that we’d finally gotten the hang of it. And so he turned a year old, a year and a half, almost two years old, and there we still were.
“Are you still breastfeeding?” my friends and acquaintances would ask me.
“Yes,” I’d say hesitantly, searching for a hint of judgment in their voices, ready to set on the defensive. For all the reasons I knew it to be right for me and Jack, I preferred to remain an “in-the-closet-breast-feeder,” protective and wary of inquiring minds, even the most well-intentioned. Not that I’d ever deny nursing my boy, but our routine was once again a private affair, back at home where we started. It was finally our time, our thing—and I guarded it fiercely.
It is bittersweet, then, to write that it’s been six whole days since I last nursed Jack. For the last couple of weeks, he’s been letting me know in little ways that he’s ready to wean. Our nursing sessions have been growing shorter and further apart for awhile, so that he now falls asleep easily without me, and when he wakes in the morning, he no longer cries out immediately for me to nurse him. Instead our little alarm clock of a boy calls out, “Mama? Dada? Eat? Eat!!! Waffle? PIZZA?!!”
Last Sunday night as I nursed him before bedtime, he giggled and burrowed in close to me. He put his little hand on my cheek and patted it softly. We sang our goodnight songs as we rocked in our chair, and as I put him down into his crib he said, “Mama. Nice. Bye-bye” and immediately fell asleep. I left his room, not knowing then that it would be the last time I would nurse my first baby.
Today, my breasts ache, full with milk from his absence, and my heart feels heavy. But I also feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment, like I’ve been running this marathon for the last two years, and I’ve finally made it to the end. It feels that big and that wonderful.
Now, my worry is that having crossed this finish line together, Jack will change his mind and decide that he needs more time. I worry that tomorrow or the next day, he’ll cry and reach out for me to nurse.
And, too, I worry that he won’t.
Sarah Torretta Klock is a story-teller, photographer, and expert wrangler of a tiny scrapper of a girl and her two brothers, one a curly-haired day-dreamer, and the other a smallish captain of the high seas, all red-heads like their father. They live happily in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
