The Cow’s Gone Dry

Breastfeeding Snow White didn't come easy. Breast reduction surgery six years before she was born almost guaranteed that it wouldn't work. But nursing and pumping nearly around the clock for the first few weeks eventually brought the supply up enough that we could stop supplementing (it helped that she was tiny, and didn't need as much milk as a normal sized baby). I remember groggily swearing that if I could just keep going till she was six weeks old, I wouldn't care how long we lasted after that. At four months I told a friend that I couldn't imagine nursing past her first birthday.

But once we introduced solids at six months and the full nutritional burden didn't fall on my chest, I could finally stop worrying about production and just enjoy the closeness, which we had a lot of, because she was pretty used to spending a lot of time at the breast. I continued nursing on demand, except for a traumatic three-day weekend when she was 13 months old and we night-weaned, and stopped paying attention to how much she demanded. Before I knew it, she was two years old and I was going back to work.

As of my first day back on the job, she went down to nursing at bedtime. She didn't seem to mind because her days with the nanny were so new and exciting. I figured my nursing days were numbered and just enjoyed the time to reconnect in the evenings without thinking too much about it. Nearly six months went by. One evening a friend came by and our schedule was thrown off. Grandma was in town, we were up late, the house was noisy. Snow White was ready to nurse so we sat down in the living room, and it was like she had forgotten how to nurse. It was more like chewing than suckling. After a few minutes I asked if she was getting any milk that way, and she said, "Not yet." I figured she was just distracted, so we gave up for that night and gave her a sippy cup with chocolate milk.

The next day things were back to normal, but the same thing happened. We tried both sides with no success. When she sat up on my lap, she had a look on her face that I will never forget. She looked confused and hurt and sad; it was the kind of face you would make if one day, out of the blue, your best friend said, "You know, I've never really liked you."

But that was it. After two and a half years of dominating my life, nursing was over for good. A couple of times over the next two weeks Snow White would ask for mama milk. I would tell her it was all gone and she would say, "Let's try." A couple more tries, and she stopped asking. I gained five pounds during those two weeks, but things seem to have stabilized now. It's kind of funny how something can be an equal mix of relief and disappointment.