Major Bummer

So. I've got some bad news. And it's not bad news that really affects anybody else in the world, but it's a big deal around here. It's something that feels like a secret, like I should be ashamed to tell the world...even though it doesn't affect anybody else. But it's not shameful, it shouldn't be, and I am writing about it so that I can get in the habit of being comfortable with the reality that I'm facing.

I am not breastfeeding my baby anymore.

I could tell you about all the lactation consultants who tried to help (there were FOUR), the ENT visits, the email chains with our pediatrician, phone calls to my mom and all my surrogate mothers here in Seattle, and I could tell you about how many tears I've cried over the last seven weeks of trying.trying.trying.

But what I need to practice, more than giving my laundry list of defenses, is getting settled into the fact that I am the mom. I am the mom who gets to decide what's best for my baby. I am the mom who gets to set an example for her kid by zooming out to see the big picture, the long-term outlook. In the grand scheme, this baby can't get what he needs to thrive, and my body can't give it to him. In the grand scheme, I'm going to face a lot of scrutiny from other people who question my decisions as a mom. I expect I'll hear from a few axe-grinding breastfeeding advocates in the next year, and that's going to be hard.

Here's how I'm gonna respond.

I love my kiddo, and I'm doing everything I can to show him just how much. And God bless Enfamil.

Currents (AKA Maryann inspires me every month)

Current TV Show: The West Wing. We are halfwaythrough season 3, and let me tellyou, I have never felt so friggin' patriotic. I LOVE PRESIDENT BARTLET. Also, did anyone watch that NBC special a few years ago on the inner workings of the White House? It was a little like The West Wing,and I wish they would do another special because I just remember the part where Obama shows up at Five Guys and everyone just set aside politics and agreed that those burgers are phenomenal. I also loved how much that Axelrod guy was really hardcore, and now I see that he is just like the fictional character Leo McGarry, whom I adore.

Current Food: Let me tell you now: there are a lot of reasons that becoming a parent is miraculous and wonderful, but in the top tier is the FOOD. Nothing makes a girl feel more cared for and supported than a fridge full of coq au vin and Ben and Jerry's Schweddy Balls. And the fridge is full up of Schweddy Balls.

Current Movie: Last to the Crazy, Stupid, Love. party and I don't even care. It was darling and cemented (recemented?) my love for Steve Carell.

Current Wishlist: A lactation consultant who appears during midnight nursing crises.

Current Music: Over the Rhine, over and over and over (see: midnight nursing crises).

Current Book: I can't really read since I need both hands while I'm nursing, and literally the nursing happens 10 hours a day. But have I mentioned The West Wing? I'm also thinking lots about Operating Instructions, which is Anne Lamott's phenomenal story of motherhood and winging the first year of her son's life. I can relate...ohsomuch. Minus the single parent/addiction/cancer parts.

And thanks to Maryann, I'm going to let you take a detour down the road of Anne Lamott-love, from Traveling Mercies:

"... I remembered another woman at our church, very old, from the South, tiny and black, who dressed in these ersatz Coco Chanel outfits, polyester sweater sets, dacron pill-box hats...She was always cheerful until she turned 80 and started going blind. She had a great deal of religious faith and everyone assumed that she would adjust and find meaning in her loss, meaning and acceptance and then joy; and we all wanted this because, let's face it, it's so inspiring and such a relief when people bear up to the unbearable. When you can box things up nicely and see that a tiny miracle took place and that love once again turned out to be bigger than fear and death and blindness. But this woman would have none of it. She went into a deep depression, and eventually left the church. People kept taking communion to her, but she wouldn't be in our community anymore. It must have been too annoying for everyone to be secretly trying to manipulate her into being a better sport about being blind than she was capable of being. I always thought that was heroic of her, that it spoke of such integrity to refuse to pretend that you're doing well just to help other people deal with the reality of impossible loss."

Current Worry: That my sweet little baby will inherit my family's big fat history of mental illness, and that I'll be holding my breath for the rest of his life. Working on shelving this, because let's be real, stressing about going crazy will make a mama crazy.

Current Indulgence: Eating like a horse. Like my friend Lindsey says, "Eat a cupcake, LOSE A POUND! Eat another cupcake, LOSE TWO POUNDS!" Breastfeeding's upside (besides the mystical bond thing) is calorie burning.

Current Obsession: