I’m about to talk about breastfeeding. If this bothers you, please read one of my past posts or go check out another blog. I won’t hold it against you.
It’s 11:30 pm and I am feeling very happy right now. After a long day of travel for a family wedding (7 hours in the car, and yes the boys came with us), I am writing instead of sleeping because of two things. One is that I am finishing my dinner surreptitiously while my angels all sleep, so I’m up anyway. Two: I am elated because I just hand expressed about 5 ounces. I have never successfully hand expressed before, and I finally did it!
Those of you new to the mama trenches may know what I am talking about because you have found yourself needing to attempt this feat…for one reason or another, you need to get milk out and you aren’t near your baby or a pump. Those of you who are veterans, you may have experienced this yourself; one or more child is already past nursing and you find yourself in a position you didn’t expect (in my case, Little Brother is teething and has apparently decided to go on a nursing strike, something I’ve never experienced) because perhaps like me, you never familiarized yourself with hand expression.
Either way, if you have nursed a baby, you likely know the discomfort I was feeling that prompted me to bring Little Brother’s sippy cup into the bathroom to try to find relief. I stood there, remembering when Big Brother was two days old and my milk hadn’t come in yet (I didn’t know then that it could take a while). I was sitting on the edge of my bed, crying as I tried in vain to get anything to come out so I could feed my brand new baby. It is a very painful memory, from a time when I was more exhausted than I ever had been or have been since. Tonight, I stood holding the cup and thinking very intently that I could do this…and the joy of success was mine!
[I went to bed before posting. It’s now morning, and I can happily report that Little Brother has decided he’s going to nurse again – hooray! Have a beautiful weekend, everyone.]
make way for bouchers 