three o'clock in the morning

a love letter to a nursing mother

I know that my experience, reflected in the letter below, does not match the experience of every woman who breastfeeds her children. I recognize that I have been immensely blessed to have an abundant supply and healthy children. Please take this letter for what it’s meant to be - an acknowledgement from one mother to another that what we are doing is holy and hard, and that we often feel more alone that we were ever meant to be. You are seen, dear mother. Even if your nursing journey has been completely different from mine, you are seen and known and deeply loved.

Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash

I see you, my sister, my self.

I see you in all your woman-ness, in the newness and the overwhelm and the question welling up in your chest. “How does anyone survive this?”

I see you in those first days, breasts heavy, packed with stones, skin stretched, pain shooting through you at even the slightest brush of your shirt. I see your baby coughing and spluttering as they try to remain latched.

I see you with damp circles on your shirt slowly spreading as embarrassment reddens your cheeks. I see you sitting on the edge of your bathtub, trying to teach yourself to express just enough to let off a little pressure without increasing your supply. I see you juggling baby and haakaa and phone and visitors and snacks and water and coffee, with the deep-seated conviction that your very survival depends on it.

I see you questioning your own goodness as a mother, as a wife, as a woman. My sister, you are so, so good. You, in all your messy and exhausted femininity, are a profound gift to the world. To your family, yes, and to me as well.

I see your sigh of resignation when the baby cries mere moments after you curl up in bed. I see the glance—something between jealousy and rage—toward your husband as he lies next to you, eyes closed, quickly drifting off to sleep, while you sit next to him, babe in arms, waiting for your turn. The desperate desire that he could take your place, if only for one night, to allow you the rest you crave. The recognition that, even if he could, you probably wouldn’t let him.

I see the exhaustion writ large on your face when your baby wakes in the middle of the night. I see the battle raging in your mind as you decide whether to bring her into bed with you, to catch what few extra moments of slumber this arrangement affords, to lean into your instinct and respect your tired bones, with the voices of countless pediatricians screaming in your mind that surely your child will die and it will be your fault.

What isn’t our fault, as mothers?

I see you saying, in silence or a whisper or a shout, that while you would die for this child in a heartbeat, you sometimes wish it weren’t so difficult to live for her. I see you cry when she does, inconsolable, won’t be settled, demands to be at the breast, refuses to nurse, wants only to be held in the arms that are the closest thing to home she knows on this side of the womb.

I see you trying to trigger a letdown for your pump, sitting in the back room at the office, scrolling through the hundreds of pictures and videos they told you that you’d never look back at. I see your confusion about flange size and suction strength and letdown mode. I feel the pressure you’re putting on yourself to pump while still working so you can make the most of your time in the office, and your disappointment at the miniscule volume of milk for all that time and effort.

I see the pain when your fertility returns, when ovulation and period temporarily tank your supply. I see the hungry baby yanking at your breast, begging for more, even as you beg her to stop. I see the wince every time she latches and the slow spread of relief across your face as the sharp pain abates. “Lay compress to the aching of your body made for breaking; we’ve got a lot of breaking left to do.”¹

I see you in the moment her tiny new teeth pierce your skin for the first time. I see you as you wipe away the blood and the tears, holding back—or not—the yelp of shock and pain and confusion. I see you in the week that follows, trying to find a position that doesn’t aggravate the bruise and the scab that you’re slathering in lanolin after every feeding.

I see you fighting through the aversion, unable to eat or drink enough to sustain yourself and her and the newest little one nestled in your womb.² I see the teeth marks in your fingers, the fingernail marks in your thighs, these visceral signs of self-gift offered through tears and silent screams. “Love will get you slaughtered like a lamb at the altar.”³

I see you when your marriage is the last thing on your mind. I see the conflict in you between wife and mother, between touch for nourishment and touch for pleasure, between quality time and quality sleep. I wrestle, just as you do, with how to strike this balance, how to allow these realities to coexist.

And sister, I see you in the joys as well.

I see you when you glance down from your book or your phone or your show and see her studying your face intently, as if to memorize every care line and freckle.

I see you when she grins so wide that she breaks her latch, her love for you written plainly on her face. Her delight in you, in your motherhood, in her daughterhood. I see your heart breaking open in that moment, growing and stretching and widening to make room for a love that changes you.

I see you staring into those beautiful eyes, wondering how on earth you got so lucky.

I see your smile when her older sister settles next to you on the couch, her own shirt pulled up, her own (stuffed) baby at the breast. I see your joy as the number on the scale grows. I see the pride that you don’t quite know how to handle when someone sees her rolls and tells you that you’re doing a good job.

I see you in the bittersweet first taste of solid food, the beginning of the end of something beautiful and wonderful and hard.

And I see you on the last day, the day you may or may not recognize as the last. I see your mourning as she continues to grow and thrive without that special time set aside for just you two. I see your sad smile as even the faintest memory, the most half-hearted request for more, fades from her mind. She’s growing up so fast.

Oh, how I see you, my sister, my self. You are never alone.

1. Rose, The Oh Hellos

2. This is not a pregnancy announcement! Just a memory from this time last year.

3. Rose, again