I can honestly say that breastfeeding Emalyn has been one of the highlights of motherhood so far. I decided to stop after her second birthday a few weeks ago, so naturally, I've taken to reflecting about the experience, and I wanted to try to articulate just how incredible of an experience it was. I know not every woman is able to breastfeed at all or for as long as I did, and that is a blessing I do not take for granted.
When I first had Emalyn, I told myself that I would be really happy if I managed to nurse her for a full year. I had absolutely no idea what it would be like, but in my mind, nursing for a year was a great goal. I kept my expectations low, though, knowing that there are many factors that could potentially prevent that from happening (such as my milk drying up, which isn't something I can exactly control, unfortunately - I know women who would have nursed for a longer period of time than they did because of this). That first week was a huge learning curve, for both of us. It was initially a bit painful, though I'm thankful that I never had a problem with pain and nursing after that (with the exception of her first teeth coming in...eek), and while I was producing an ample amount of milk for her, it did take Emalyn some time to learn how to latch correctly so that she could access that surplus. The two lactation specialists we saw (one at the hospital and one at her pediatrician's office) and I did what we could to help, and she eventually figured it out.
After the first month, though, I honestly didn't know if we'd make it beyond that. Emalyn lost a bit of her birth weight (almost a pound), partly because it took us a little while to nail down the whole nursing thing but also because of her jaundice, so her pediatrician had advised we do triple feedings, where I nursed her, then pumped, then fed her the pumped milk every time she needed to eat in an effort to help her gain back the weight and then some.
Let me pause here and explain just how involved triple feedings are. On average, newborns that are a month old or younger nurse 8-12 times a day. I was already tired from doing that alone (those middle-of-the-night feedings are not for the faint of heart), especially since we decided to avoid giving her a bottle for the first month. Some babies get used to being bottle fed and have a hard time going back to breastfeeding, so we wanted to maximize our chances of success with it. Now, I didn't do the triple feedings throughout the night - I think I tried once but was just too exhausted, so I quickly scratched that idea - and I also don't think I did them for more than a week. The doctor wanted to give me a chance to help Emalyn gain weight naturally before suggesting a more serious intervention, and I was able to do that (YASSS MAMA!), so I didn't need to keep going. However, triple feedings are no joke, and yes, when I got on the other side of it, I was pretty freakin' proud of myself.
Now back to the story. I mentioned that we were trying to hold off on the bottle for the first month. That clearly couldn't happen because of the triple feedings, so I was a little concerned about whether Emalyn would continue to nurse or if she'd just want the bottle.
Turns out I had nothing to worry about though - Emalyn didn't have a problem switching back and forth. : ) Because of that, over the next several months, I continued to do a mix of breastfeeding and pumping for her. Since I worked from home, I was able to feed her directly more often than if I had a job elsewhere, so I eventually settled on pumping three times a day and nursing her the rest of the time. This meant I had milk for the nanny to use while I was working, and it also meant Peter could spend some quality time with her while feeding her.
Emalyn never nursed for a long time (I know plenty of babies nurse for a good 45 minutes each session but she never nursed that long), which was nice. And while I would often nurse her while reading (I spent many sessions reading through Midnight Sun those first few months) or watching TV, sometimes I would just take a good look at her. Sometimes she'd be wide awake, and sometimes she'd close her eyes and nurse herself to sleep. Watching her fall asleep was cute because if she fell asleep while latched, sometimes if I tried to move her, she'd react in her sleep and start sucking again. Sometimes she'd be looking away from me, and other times she'd be looking right at me. She smelled good too, especially after a bath, when her shampoo scent lingered in her hair. Something else that was really cute was how she'd sometimes accidentally unlatch and then start shaking her head from side to side as if she were saying "no" in search of the milk maker because she couldn't quite see yet. Those were the absolute cutest nursing memories. I've taken photos and videos of some of our nursing sessions that I just looked through recently to help me remember those early days, and I cherish them deeply.
As she approached her first birthday and started napping less often, it wasn't always as easy to figure out when she was hungry. We ended up teaching her the Cantonese word for milk, which is "nai nai," partly to connect her with her Chinese roots and partly because I refused to teach her to say "boobie" or some derivative of it when she wanted to nurse. 😑 So once she was able to start saying small words, that was how she let me know she was ready for milk.
Between year one and two, Emalyn was a little more adventurous and a little bolder too. She'd nurse while standing up, making a 90 degree angle with her body, which always cracked me up. When she wanted to nurse, she'd try to pull down my shirt (and no, we weren't always at home or alone when this happened). When we were in public and I wore a nursing cover, she'd move her limbs quite a lot, causing others to laugh at the weird shapes protruding from beneath the cover. She'd sometimes pat my chest to let me know what she wanted as well. She even had the audacity to tell me which side she wanted to nurse from (though a lot of times it felt more like a game than anything else - let's see how fast Mama can move me from one side to the other and back!). Somewhere around the 16- or 18-month mark, I started weaning her until she was only nursing twice a day, once after she woke up in the morning and once before she went to sleep. We were going out a lot more, and I was losing stamina, if I'm honest, so I decided that was the right move for us. Plus, Peter and I had started going on more day dates and sometimes even overnight dates, and if I went several hours without nursing, my boobs HURT. Well, okay, hurt is a strong word, but they were very uncomfortable because they were filled to the brim with milk, and I remember having to relieve some of the milk into a toilet in a public restroom once, and it felt like such a sacrilegious thing to do so. 😭 (It was really hard watching that liquid gold go down the drain, let me tell you) So I stopped nursing as frequently. I told myself we'd continue until her second birthday and then we'd stop for good. And that's exactly what we did.
I enjoyed that last week of breastfeeding to the fullest, and on her birthday, I held Emalyn tight and just looked at her, telling her how much I was going to miss these bonding sessions with her. Because that's what they were, even when she wasn't an infant anymore. They were times when we were forced to slow down and just relish each other's company. I still marvel at how my body had been prepared not only to bring her into existence but also to provide for her, to care for her. It's something I will never take for granted. Nursing her just felt like...home. It felt so natural, as though she and I were simply meant to be. And while she still occasionally asks for Mama's nai nai instead of bottled nai nai, I'd like to believe she cherishes those precious Mommy-and-me moments too.
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