Written March 18, 2023

Day 25 of 40 in a 45-day period: Thanks to my parents visiting I took myself to a late lunch before a trip to Target. I had the sense I was being watched and looked to my right to see a blue-eyed baby eying me or my pancakes. Her mother and I chatted for a few minutes and then went on with our afternoons, hers with a slightly fussy 10-week old and mine with a little time to myself.

I was reminded of the days filled with babies, naps, nursing and pumping. While there have been countless aspects of parenting that have surprised me over the years, the intensity of childrearing and my time not being my own have been my achilles heels.

When the girls were babies my time was controlled by a three-hour rotation of either nursing or pumping. When they were infants, that three-hour rotation was a one- or two-hour rotation because infants have no concern for anyone’s time. Then we’d get into a rhythm, perfectly timed with going back to work with my bag/backpack on one arm and my pump on the other.

My breast pump was like an appendage for three years of my life. In that time I pumped in a prayer room, nursing rooms, school supply closets, bathrooms, principals’ offices, on the beach, in the bathroom while getting ready and in my kitchen washing dishes. I loathed every minute of it.

With G I was too tired to care anymore and pumped during meetings with teachers because I was always and forever pumping. Once in the middle of a meeting a teacher interrupted asking, “WHAT is that noise?!” Then he realized the noise was correlated to the swaddle blanket tied around my Madonna Like a Virgin looking chest so he could be spared the visual of milking a human. He had no further questions after that day.

Of all the blurry memories of those days, what sticks out the most was how much I hated pumping and wouldn’t give myself the grace and permission to say enough. I told myself I didn’t have a good reason to stop because my supply was never an issue. I wish I had been more honest with myself to recognize I could have stopped nursing/pumping simply because I had had enough.

Imagine the people we could be if we accepted enough as enough.