giving milk

In a world literature class in college, I read "Breast-Giver" by Mahasweta Devi. It's Bengali literature -- a story about a Brahmin-class woman who nurses babies at the temple so their mothers can keep their youthful figures. Jashoda's only role is to give milk -- life -- to babies, and "[her] place in the house is... above the [sacred] cows." She is like a goddess.

In my notes I wrote that because of her class and her gender, she becomes lower than the cows when her breasts stop giving milk.

The end of the story is gruesome and sad. Jashoda develops breast cancer, and the story says her breast explodes with infection. It "becomes like the crater of a volcano. The smell of putrefaction makes approach difficult." Jashoda is rejected by the people whose babies she nourished. She's rejected by the babies themselves. Even her doctor -- one of the babies she had suckled -- is not present at her death. She dies alone.

I had to return to the story and to my notes to remember all these details. I remembered the breast-giving -- the suckling -- but I didn't remember how she was revered at the temple. I remembered the cancer and the rotting breast, but I didn't remember the rejection.

When a baby is feeding from your breast, you feel like your heart is swelling with affection. At every single feeding. (Sidenote: this does not happen when you express milk with a pump.) I have only breastfed my own child, but I believe it would happen with any child. Jashoda gave more than milk to the babies she nourished; she gave them her heart and her emotions. And as her breast erupts, I believe her heart is breaking too. I wonder if she regrets the suckling, as she's dying alone. I have never been fully rejected; I have never suffered in that kind of pain. But I still don't think I would regret having given milk to babies. I hope Jashoda didn't either.

I get advertisements for baby formula all the time. The ads sing the praises of formula. It has DHA! vitamins! minerals! These are essential for your baby's development! But, the fine print reads, breast milk is always best for a baby's health.

I have said I would nurse another mother's baby. I think people in our culture might get wigged out to know that, but it seems like a natural sacrifice -- something any woman should be willing to give another. And I call it a sacrifice because there is a connection of flesh and hearts in breastfeeding, a connection I would probably have to sever day after day, and eventually forever, when the baby is weaned.

I remember Jashoda because of how she gave. She kept giving and giving, even when she was suffering alone. If I could be remembered for one thing, I would want to be remembered for giving like that.

expanding my boundaries

I just got my baby to finish eating his supper by singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" over and over and over.

i'd rather be reading...

...but I feel like I owe something to the two beautiful people who deposited comments in my inbox after nearly a month of blog silence on my part. I definitely didn't deserve three comments this morning [last Thursday], so it was like a handful of grace extended to a woman in desperate need some verve. So, my dear commenting friends, I give you what may be my day's most valuable moments: naptime.

I just laid Isaiah down in his crib after he fell asleep in his carseat. (He's in such a chatty stage right now. "Da-da-da-da, ta-ta-ta, buh-buh-buh, pbpbppbpb [blowing bubbles, a.k.a. spitting]" are his favorite things to tell me these days.) I was thinking, Please don't wake up. Please don't wake up, when he opened his eyes and said, "Da-da-da-da," and then went right back to sleep. It gave me a good laugh. That's the kind of thing that keeps me going.

of books and babies

Yesterday I opened the cover of Middlemarch, the first book I had tried to read for pleasure in probably a month. I made it through the introduction, but my brain was already hurting. In that moment, I told myself that I would never be this era's great American novelist. If I can't read George Eliot on my worst of days, I can't write timeless fiction on my best of days.

Today I settled for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer instead. Eliot will have to wait for another day -- maybe a day without diapers and nursing and chasing after a baby who's much too young to be pulling himself up stairsteps.

I read the first three chapters out loud to my little boy, rolling out the Missouri twang like no one was listening. I imagined days when I'd lie in bed with all our little children, reading it again when they're old enough to actually understand. And I decided it was okay if I"m never a famous writer.

I might survive motherhood to pump out some readable nonfiction. I might even try to finish those novels I started in the days when pumping didn't bring breasts to mind. And I'll fall back into reading books like a natural, I'm sure, wondering what I ever found so difficult about Middlemarch. But in reading and writing and feeling intellectual again, I'll be thankful for having done more important things with my life -- things relating to diapers and nursing and chasing after a baby (who's much too young to be pulling himself up stairsteps).

the one-woman circus

I am a mom;
I am a one-woman circus--
a jungle gym,
comedian,
snack bar
all-in-one.
I can do
the juggling,
the balancing,
acrobatics,
and dancing.
I'm a
trust-builder,
smile-maker,
noisemaker
supper-baker.
I can stand up,
sit down,
lifting weights
with one arm.
I handle the manure,
the cries,
and the razor sharp claws.

I am a one-woman circus.

How's the pay?
Not too great.

But the applause--
smiles, first moments,
looks of awe
and adoration--
is deafening.

childbirth

You prepare like the dickens (or you have good intentions to), hoping Kegels and breathing will somehow make this a painfree experience for you, the most prepared woman in the world. By the time the contractions start in earnest, you've forgotten all about breathing and you know you're in for a long ride.

You kind of wish you could just go to the hospital and get it over with already, but you call your doctor, a nurse, the hospital, the hospital again, and everyone keeps saying, "Just wait until the contractions are closer." Closer. Harder. Closer. Harder. If you have to have this baby at home, they'll be responsible, you vow. So you talk to your sisters and your mom because they'll know best, better than those doctors and nurses, who haven't had near as many babies and don't have experience with your family's genetics. Talking to family makes you cry, but at least they assure you that the medical professionals are probably as whacko as you think they are. But still you stay at home because you think you can take it just a little longer, but the whole thing has been going on for over a day now, and you wonder if this labor part will ever turn into delivery.

Four o'clock in the afternoon and you say "enough is enough." You're not waiting for closer contractions because you know your husband's not keen on delivering his firstborn in the car.

You get to the hospital, feeling like a champ for laboring so long on your own. The nurse tells you you're doing such a good job for being at this stage, but who knows if every woman gets told the same thing. You walk around, you lean over, you read your book, you crunch on some ice chips, you take a bath. You sit on a big blue ball, convincing yourself it helps. The hours drag on; the pain gets worse. The television noise has got to go. The big blue ball has long since stopped fooling you of its helpfulness. You climb into bed. You ask yourself if you will ever have more children. Is there a back-door exit to this delivery thing? You try to breathe calmly, but it's no use. Enough of being macho: where's the painkiller?

The moments get hazy -- of seeing the head, of counting and pushing. Somehow in the midst of all your straining and breathing and pushing, someone up and steals your brain... or it wanders away when you're not paying attention. (Sometime after delivery, you'll realize it's gone and can only hope it'll find its way back soon.) But you don't notice because a flood has just been released from your body, your soul. It's over. It's over. It's over. The squalling baby is alive. It's alive. It's perfect. It's your baby. It's yours.

You try to catch your breath as they place a living being on your chest. You have just experienced a miracle.

The next day or two are blurry due to lack of sleep, but you're delirious (and sore). Before you know it, you're home and wondering who exactly was crazy enough to trust you with something so perfect, so fragile. Didn't they check your list of credentials? Didn't they realize you have no idea what to do with a live baby? As you sit there in the darkness and try to nurse, you realize that despite your brain being AWOL and your body being subject to a stronger force of gravity, you still remember how to love. And you figure that's a good place to start.

everyday perfection

I see the wind whipping across the grass outside, and I tell Isaiah, "It's a blustery day." His face blossoms into a perfect grin. I repeat myself then, several times, just to see that perfection again. He thinks I'm hilarious, and probably the best singer in the world, too. But then again, he smiles at the light in our study -- ignores me, even, just to look at that light.

He's utterly free of self-consciousness -- free to smile, free to cry, free to fart at will. For him, there's nothing better than being naked. Forget hunger, forget cold, forget tiredness -- nudity eliminates them all.

I'm convinced Isaiah is the most brilliant and physically talented baby that ever lived. He doesn't always perform for relatives, friends, and doctors, but it's okay. We know. I read books to Isaiah. Usually he bears with me, hyperventilating at each new page, convincing me he's a genius. Instead of burping against my chest, like a normal baby, Isaiah likes to stand up (and look at the light in the study). Of course, at two and a half months, he has no sense of balance, but his legs are as strong as a couple of horses.

(When he's not eating or burping,) Isaiah loves to lie against my arm or my chest, his face buried in the folds of my shirt. I usually move his head to keep him from suffocation. Obviously, security and comfort are more important to him than breathing.

For him, I give up reading and cleaning. For him, I give up writing this down the first time it crosses my mind; it'll never sound like it did the first time; it'll never be better than mediocre writing. Oh, well. It's best to lie on the couch, his tiny body nestled against mine. In his peacefulness, I believe along with him that all is well with the world.