Blog Carnival - Finding the Mother in Me

I’m participating in a blog carnival today hosted by It’s My Baby and I’ll _____ If I Want To, a blog affiliated with Welcome Baby Care. We carnivalistas are writing about what it was like the first few days at home with our new babies. Hmmm… I like this topic. It’s easy for me to think and write about the first days with Frank and Walt, because those days were so easy. We cuddled. We nursed. They slept. I didn’t. There wasn’t anything exciting at all about it. I thought I could post a few text-book-style photos and that would be that.

But the point, I think, is to demonstrate how we all fumble into motherhood differently, how we mothers were born along with our babies. Frank and Walt aren’t good examples of that. I was already a mom and didn’t have much of an adjustment to bambinos #2 and #3.

For me, the adjustment was with #1 bambina, our drama queen, Miss Belencita.

There are two things I remember about those first few days home with Bel. First, I remember how awkward it was to breastfeed her. She knew what she was doing. I was the one who took a while to figure things out. Second, I remember all the baths we gave her. She was a clean kid. I don’t know why, but we felt the need to give her a bath every single day.

But I need to talk about the breastfeeding. I really over-thought the whole thing. I was like a robot. I’d watch the clock, and when the clock said Bel was hungry, I’d feed her, and the feeding episodes were rituals that left little time or energy for the cuddling and snuggling that is the essence of breastfeeding. It is, you see, not just about food. It’s about nurturing. I missed that in the early days. Instead, feeding time was an event that was planned and executed. Here were the instructions I made for myself and ridiculously followed:

Ingredients:
couch, back pillow, Boppy pillow, water thermos (filled), clock, and baby

Steps:
1. Clear off couch
2. Put water thermos within reach of intended feeding location on the couch
3. Put back back pillow on couch feeding location
4. Put Boppy pillow within reach of intended feeding location (careful not to spill the water thermos)
5. Put clock within view of intended feeding location
6. Take off shirt (I hadn’t figured out how to feed with it on yet)
7. Sit down in established feeding location on couch
8. Put Boppy on lap
9. Take baby from husband
10. Try to remember what side baby fed on last time
11. Put baby’s had on opposite side from where she fed last time
12. Assemble perfect latch
13. Let baby suckle for exactly 20 minutes – no more, no less
14. Break the suckle seal (Because she’s done, damnit! The clock says so!)
15. Offer other breast until baby is content

Sigh. It’s exhausting to read that, isn’t it? Well, I eventually figured out that Bel is a person and not just “the baby.” She has preferences, feelings, and tastes. And like the rest of us, her appetite varies. As my lactation consultant explained to me, “Sometimes you and I want a large pizza for dinner, and sometimes we just want some popcorn. Your baby is the same way. She won’t eat the same way each time. You have to respond to her.”

And so I settled into a more comfortable routine of feeding her when she was hungry, and I let her eat as much as she wanted. Sometimes she ate and ate and ate and ate, and that made me feel better when she had smaller meals. I learned to breastfeed sitting in other chairs, without the Boppy, and while keeping my shirt on. And we cuddled. And we snuggled. I mothered her, and soon I understood the enjoyment of breastfeeding. I found the mother that was in me, and when Frank and Walty came around, I found it easy to find the right way to mother and breastfeed them in the unique ways they needed.

I do want to say that my point here isn’t that mothers should all breastfeed and that if they do, they must do it exactly how I have. That’s not it. I’m saying that the process I went through helped me figure out what was right for me. It was through those ridiculous rituals that I found the mother in me.

I'm glad I found her.