In the recovery room after the C-section, a nurse carried calm newborn Colette to me, and right away she latched on to my breast and began to suck, naturally and easily. In those early minutes with her, I memorized her small face, her fine silvery hair and her rich sweet smell. I had worried about everything in the days leading up to her birth. Now, here she was, healthy and alert, and the fears cleared gently like fog, leaving in their absence a lovely baby girl, nursing peacefully.
I have had the good fortune to nurse two beautiful babies, five years apart, and, in the arc of my life so far, these have been the sweetest times, like falling in love. I nursed each of them every two to three hours from their birth, a process I'm grateful to have experienced. I surrendered completely, and for many surreal months nursing is all I accomplished.
Through nursing, I learned of their temperaments. Colette was a slurper, relaxed and perceptive. For her, my milk was as fattening as milkshakes, and she conked out drunk after nursing, milk dribbling down her chin. Serene and fast-growing, she seemed to have an inner agenda to grow, to mature as quickly as possible so she could explore the interesting world around her.
Adele, on the other hand, was dark red from screaming when she first nursed, and she latched on to my breast instinctively to soothe herself. High-strung, she nursed around the clock, rarely sleeping for more than two hours. For her, my milk changed inexplicably to the nonfat variety. She was smaller--chipper and birdlike--and also jumpy and distractible, unable to nurse with people or noises in the room. During her first year, she and I spent hundreds of hours together in my quiet bedroom, the nursing relaxing her.
During these months of nursing each child, I felt no existential angst or worries about my purpose or place in the universe. My only concerns were to eat, sleep, feed the baby and keep the milk ducts free of clogs. I was in a Zen-like state of oneness with the cosmos, and my purpose was clear. There was at those junctures just one small infant, a beauty with a perfect soft head gazing up at me. I lost myself in each of them. Their tiny faces were maps of the world, their moving, growing bodies complex planets, endlessly fascinating. I rested, produced milk, gazed and beheld.
Since those days, my role as a mother has shifted, requiring that I nurture their separate, developing identities and, in the process, continue to reshape my own. Now we have four distinct selves in our house and a fair amount of existential angst. We are four celestial bodies trying to find our places in the universe. Even as the girls grow and are weaned from their dependence on me, I want to be there for them, tethered loosely and in connection. Together we are a moving constellation, four bright stars, like the outline of Orion's strong form in the sky, creating a reliable pattern of happiness for one another and reference points for love.
