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<p>For days after my son’s birth, he drank contaminated formula. My husband and I

didn’t know, despite my extensive note keeping of all casual tidbits doctors and nurses told us

about caring for a baby. Still, so many gaps remained. How to properly prepare infant formula

was one of them. At six pounds and two ounces, we fed our small baby through a syringe. He

struggled to suck on my breast, and my body produced too little colostrum to fill his tiny tummy,

so we plunged formulated milk past his gums and into his mouth. Droplets of white liquid

slipped out of his barely open lips, and we scraped the remnants back onto his tongue with the

edge of a syringe.</p>

<p>The nurses congratulated us when our baby sucked up twelve milliliters of formula

instead of six. They called my husband and I “mom” and “dad.” We wanted to be good parents.

Although I intended to reconcile using formula instead of breastmilk, I worried with every drop

that slid down this throat or out of his mouth. Though my body grew him, it may never nourish

him again.</p>

<p>The lactation consultant mentioned that mothers who undergo c-sections are less

likely to breastfeed. Unsettled, I took to the internet, searching for an answer to the unknown

gaps of parenting. One theory is that the placenta expelling through a mother’s stomach rather

than her vagina may not signal the hormones estrogen and progesterone to decrease quickly

enough, which in turn, prevents the hormone prolactin from unblocking and allowing milk

secretion. Immediate skin-to-skin contact with the mother after a baby’s birth releases oxytocin,

and oxytocin improves milk production. Because I birthed my child through an unplanned c-

section, the nurses took him from my body and set him on a sanitized table instead of on my

chest. They spent the first several minutes of his life inspecting him before I held him, which

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bumped my son and I from the category of “immediate skin-to-skin” to “early skin-to-skin.” I

read that any delay in skin-to-skin may lead to reduced suckling ability, less infant receptiveness,

and less milk production. Those mothers and babies often experiencing a shortened breastfeeding

journey.</p>

<p>I worried that those first few minutes—the ones I twisted my neck to see my baby

who rested on the table instead of in my arms; those moments I ignored the anesthesiologist

asking if I felt pressure or pain and instead craned for glimpses of my baby that only seconds ago

lived inside of me—ruined any further chance of my body feeding him. Doctors pulled my son

from me, but I longed to breastfeed him and maintain some form of bodily connection, to bridge

his existence inside of me to his existence outside. Instead, I held a syringe to his lips, relieved

when he finally stirred awake enough to suck.</p>

<p>A few hours after our son’s birth, one of the lactation specialists explained that the

shape of my nipples may lead to an undersupply of milk. I sat bare chested in the hospital bed, a

crying and hungry baby on my lap. She notified the head lactation consultant at the hospital of

our situation. When the head specialist entered our room, she offered extra cream for my already

sore nipples and promised to help me breastfeed. I flinched a little every time a new person

stared at my breasts, uncomfortable with both my immodesty and their scrutiny. While I held my

infant to my chest, the consultant adjusted my shoulders, and I twinged at her touch. Wincing

with slightest movements, I held my breath to keep from yelling in pain. Finally, my baby

latched for a few moments. I saw his lips sucking, pulling the milk from me for nourishment, our

bodies connected, pulsing, beating. I felt like a real mother.</p>

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 <p>We practiced breastfeeding at the hospital, but we continued supplementing with

formula. My baby spit up a lot. Perhaps he’d developed an allergy, we wondered, or maybe he

had a particularly sensitive stomach. We never considered that we somehow spoiled his food.

We tried different formula brands, yet it still bubbled down his chin in half-digested globs. My

husband and I realized our mistake on the third day in the hospital, when one of the lactation

consultants explained the volatileness of formula. If a baby’s mouth touched the syringe and the

syringe then touched the formula, it contaminated the bottle. The formula must be transferred to

a separate bottle to be warmed, or it contaminated the bottle. Unable to find language to inquire

about long-term effects from contaminated formula, or the severity of excess spitting up, or

question why none of the nurses or doctors or specialists helped us earlier, I only understood that

the formula that I resented giving my baby in the first place made him sick.</p>

<p>After discovering the contaminated formula in the hospital, I committed to

exclusively breastfeeding. He latched, though incorrectly, and I stayed quiet about the deep

bruising or the sharp pangs of pain for weeks because I refused to risk using formula again.

When I eventually divulged the tenderness to the lactation consultant, she provided more healing

products and adjusted his latch. I nursed every hour, and my baby ate for an hour each time, my

body unfolding nutrients again and again.</p>

<p>For months after his birth, milk consumed our lives. Lactation specialists checked on

us at our home, boxes of unused emergency formula took up space in the cupboard, and tiny

bottles of breastmilk filled the fridge. The electric pump rested on the nursing pillow as the main

decor of the living room, and nipple shields, leak pads, bottles, prescription creams, and soothing

gels covered every horizontal surface of our townhome.</p>

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 <p>My baby stayed small. For the first few months, he maintained in the zero percentile

for weight. The pediatrician explained that I may need to feed him more, or, he suggested, I can

supplement with formula again. I cried at home. I could not understand how my body—the body

everyone kept telling me was miraculous for birthing a child and producing milk—was not

offering him enough.</p>

<p>The lactation specialist knocked on our door again. She sat next to me on the couch,

told me to relax, encouraged me to breathe. A mother’s stress may prevent oxytocin release and

stop milk flow. I breathed slowly on the couch, though relaxing proved difficult knowing that my

stress may impede my milk production. The consultant encouraged me to close my eyes and

visualize the milk coming down. I kept my eyes closed and my breaths even. My child nursed

easily and nuzzled into my chest. The consultant tested the fat content of my milk and found that

my milk composition contained too few calories in the night. She suggested I eat a little more fat

before bed. The more calories I ate, the more calories in my milk.</p>

<p>I swallowed a spoonful of peanut butter nightly, the desire to feed my baby

outweighing the voice of anorexia I’d spent six years trying to silence. Years before I birthed my

son, my life was engulfed by eating disorder hospitalization, therapy, doctor appointments,

workbooks, journaling, and sticky notes of inspirational quotes and interventions. By the time I

became a mother I ate, more or less, like an average person. To avoid the continual temptation to

backslide into an anorexic relapse, I accounted for triggers and logged pictures of each meal and

snack for my dietician, whom I still saw weekly. After years of anorexia, I was unsure whether

I’d ever be able to conceive a baby at all. When the lactation specialist noted my low-fat milk, I

committed to eating anything for my baby, hoping to resist the urge to mask my new stresses of

motherhood by restricting intake. I knew that an inability to consume the calories needed to help

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my baby gain weight likely meant a need to supplement with formula again for his health. I

added another scoop of avocado to my toast and smeared it across bread.</p>

<p>Somewhere along the way— once my son finally began gaining weight, once he

made it to the second percentile, once my evening peanut butter no longer startled me, once my

nipples healed and my cesarean scar became less tender and he latched naturally and cooed and

looked into my eyes while he nursed— I loved feeding him. My milk sustained him, and he grew

in my arms. We were both healthy and healing. We helped each other eat.</p>

<p>Many moments existed just between him and me. We sat alone together, in the dark,

in his nursery. The uncertainty of pregnancy and the fear of his weight lived only in memory. By

then, my child in my arms drinking my milk became our only predictable routine. We stayed

awake for most of the night together. His eyelids flickered in the dark, and I watched him nearly

fall asleep while he sucked. His sound machine hissed a white noise that sounded like ocean

waves. I chose the ocean setting because I hoped that maybe one day we’d live by the water.

Maybe when we did, he would hear the frothy whoosh of the waves and know that he was

home.</p>

<p>He cried whenever he laid in his bassinet and not in my arms, and one night, after

hours of rocking and cuddling only for him to wake again the moment his sheets held him

instead of me, I relented and brought him to my bed. Doctors and blogs and friends all talked

about the dangers of co-sleeping, and I followed every snippet of advice to keep my baby safe.

Doctors and blogs and friends all discouraged nursing babies to sleep to avoid a dependency on

needing milk to fall asleep and instead recommended offering the baby the gift of independence

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and self-soothing. But, in the middle of the night, when both my baby and I wailed from

exhaustion, when I was so sleep deprived that I saw stars each time I lurched from bed, I gave in.

I propped pillows around the mattress to prevent him from falling, wrapped him into my arms so

that I physically could not roll over him, and then I let him suckle himself to sleep.</p>

<p>Lying with me, my son soothed immediately. He clutched my chest with his fingers,

his small nails digging into my skin, a plea to never let him go, to hold him there, just like that,

while life and time moved around us. That first night, I lay awake for hours, rehearsing images of

him falling off the bed and me rolling onto him and SIDS and wondering how to keep my

motherhood complacence a secret. I listened to podcasts and music, wrote poems in my head,

looked through pictures on my phone, anything to keep me from falling asleep with my child

beside me. I promised to place him in his bassinet the next night.</p>

<p>And yet, I loved those hours together. He held his mouth against my breast all night,

instantly calmed when he stirred and felt me there. His breath warmed my chest, and the tiny

hairs on my sternum tickled from the touch.</p>

<p>Time chugged along, and my baby changed as he grew. He learned to sit for one

minute at a time, then two. He moved by dragging his stomach along the carpet and pulling

himself with his arms, and despite his initial clumsiness, within a few months he army crawled at

shocking speeds. Amid constantly changing development leaps, feeding remained our

consistency. Every two to three hours he cried or fussed or squirmed and only I, his mother,

could comfort him. His huffing stopped the moment his lips grasped against me, he lowered his

eyelids, his long eyelashes nearly dusting the tops of his cheeks and gulped as hard as he could.

It embarrassed me at first, the gulping, other people hearing him consume his dinner. He kicked

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his toes out from the cover, crossing and uncrossing his ankles with each suck of milk. But the

more apparent his satisfaction, the more I relied on it — on him. I could not sleep without his

weight on my arm, our skin sweaty from touching. We depended on each other, mother and

son.</p>

<p>Oxytocin is sometimes referred to as the “bonding hormone” and plays a major role

in milk production. I didn’t know if it was the oxytocin, or the comfort of my finger tickling his

soft belly while he ate, or the warmth of my skin against his lips, or the way he looked at me

with his blue-gray baby eyes and long lashes, but both my baby and I preferred breastfeeding to

bottle feeding. If offered a bottle of breastmilk, he clamped his lips and pushed the bottle away.

He only drank from a bottle if someone other than me offered it to him: if I was out of sight,

away from home. During those absences, my breasts filled with pressure and swelled, blue

lightning veins darkening on my chest. When we were separated, my breasts became more

engorged with each hour that passed, so painfully full that I could focus on nothing other than

wishing for my baby. Some people experience fevers that lead to intense illness from breast

engorgement, a mother’s body destroying itself, pleading for her child.</p>

<p>My brain missed my son when we spent time apart, and my body missed him too.

The first time I left him for a couple of hours, I cried upon returning to him. Although he drank a

full bottle of milk just minutes prior, he sucked immediately and we clung to each other, my

chest pulsing. I tried to take a brief pause, switch breasts, but he flung his tiny arms against me,

stopping me from moving, grabbing tighter with his mouth so that I could not let him go, not

separate us, not even for a moment.</p>

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 <p>Aside from the brief stint of formula in the hospital, my body, and my body alone,

sustained him completely for nearly fourteen months. For nine months of pregnancy, I gave my

baby nutrients from every part of me—my teeth, my hair, my blood. After his birth, he

exclusively nursed for four and a half months—every ounce he gained because of me, every

spoonful of peanut butter I ate transferred to him. I sustained him. I gave him life. And then, one

day, oatmeal did.</p>

<p>I bit my lip while mixing the tablespoon of dry infant oatmeal into a couple

tablespoons of my own milk. Perverting my own creation. Our pediatrician told us that at four-

months-old he could begin eating whole food, though I postponed giving my son anything but

me for a couple weeks. When I spooned the bit of oatmeal into his mouth, my husband recorded

a video that I insisted we take for documentation. I celebrated when he swallowed his first bite,

laughed at his grimace. We offered him a few more bites and after a couple of minutes of our

son’s refusal, I took the spoon away. He was done. He hated it. We shouldn’t push something

onto him that he wasn’t ready for, that I wasn’t ready for.</p>

<p>My baby grew to six months, then eight months, then ten-months-old. I slowly added

more solid food into his diet, and with time, we both accepted his new form of eating. I fed him

pieces of smashed avocado or banana and large pieces of bread for him to gum on. My milk

transitioned from 100% of his diet, to 80%, to 50%. The role of solid food in his day transitioned

from primarily a sensory experience, to supplementing nursing sessions, to complete snacks, to

full meals. He preferred eating solid food with both hands and cheeks full, and he rolled food

around in his mouth until it softened and then, when any food item resembled a disgusting blob

of liquid, he swallowed. He breastfed after every meal to wash it all down.</p>

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 <p>By my son’s first birthday, he pinched full segments of orange between his thumb

and pointer finger, then smashed them, open-palmed, into his mouth. He consumed most of an

orange with this technique, sparing only bits of juice and stringy blobs of citrus that clung to his

face, the highchair, and the floor. The bottom of our bathtub was seemingly permanently stained

with tiny, tear-shaped juice vesicles. He ate full oranges in one sitting. Now, he ate solid food

multiple times a day.</p>

<p>After his birth, I’d hoped to breastfeed until his first birthday. I assumed that after

one year I would want my body back, my baby would no longer enjoy breastfeeding, and

weaning would naturally transition him from infant to toddler. Yet with the arrival of his

birthday, I’d come to terms with him eating solid food in addition to breastmilk, but I dreaded

weaning.</p>

<p>Nursing a one-year-old was different than breastfeeding a newborn. He beamed,

laughed, and clapped while drinking, and he unlatched out of distraction rather than sleepiness. I

breastfed him less often—I no longer became engorged after a couple hours, and strawberries

and oranges soothed him almost as well as milk did.</p>

<p>Our doctor told us that once our child turned one, he may drink whole milk if we

choose. I delayed this possibility for six more weeks. The nutrients in my milk shifted with my

baby’s needs—the vitamins fluctuated with his health and his age. When he sniffled from his

first cold, my body changed for his and helped him recover quicker. The caloric value of my

milk was highest in the mornings, the time he required the most nutrients. My milk fluctuated for

my child, and the nutrition content adjusted in as little as a couple hours to match his current

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body. My body grew for him, shrunk for him, anticipated his next need, and created him out of

myself. He only needed my milk. Not pasteurized milk in a jug from a cow that didn’t love him

or know him, milk meant for a baby other than mine.</p>

<p>My hands shook a little as I poured the whole milk into a bottle. I only filled the

bottle half full; I didn’t want to overwhelm him with more than two ounces of milk, and I

expected him to only taste it and refuse to drink more.</p>

<p>I laid my son against my lap, the same way he lay when he nursed, and propped the

bottle into his mouth. His eyes widened and then his eyebrows scrunched as he sipped, trying to

decipher the taste. He chewed on the bottle’s plastic nipple rather than drinking, exploring the

texture. And then, he pushed the bottle away, opened his mouth, and I knew he wanted my milk.

I smiled, exhaled, felt chosen. But after a moment he turned from my breast and grabbed the

bottle. He looked at me, then lowered his eyelids, his long eyelashes nearly dusting the tops of

his cheeks and gulped as hard as he could. He slurped both ounces. I held him and his bottle in

my arms, feeling betrayed but also a little silly for feeling betrayed, knowing that a good mother

would welcome new developmental leaps and experiences for her child. Then I wept.</p>

<p>Although I knew that our breastfeeding journey continued beyond his drinking a

bottle of whole milk—I still nursed him half a dozen times a day—I recognized the natural step

toward weaning. Because soon, although I didn’t know if it would be weeks or months from

then, the ducts in my chest would stop contracting, the veins sinking deeper into my skin, my

breasts would shrink, and my body would not know my son’s needs before my brain. He would

live as a being surviving without my blood, without my milk. A being who needed my nurturing

and protection and curiosity, but not my body.</p>

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 <p>People often tell me that I don’t look like I had a baby, always meant to flatter me,

but I grieve that my baby’s presence has slid from my body. The linea nigra faded, though I

cannot remember when it dimmed from dark to light to missing. Even my cesarian scar settles

across my abdomen a modest pink and not an angry red. I lost the pregnancy weight, and then

some. Weight keeps slipping off, my body separating further and further from the one that

carried my son. I tell my dietician that my weight loss happens unintentionally—that, at least

consciously, I dodge the race to attain the impossible “pre-pregnancy body.” I’m eating, I

promise her and everyone around me who is startled by my rapid weight loss. They believe me,

though with wary. Everyone holds their breath, quietly suspicious that motherhood changing my

body will trigger an anorexic relapse. Sometimes I think about what will happen when I stop

nursing—worry that I’ll struggle with nourishing my body just for own belly again. And yet, I

cling to the motherhood showing on my being. My body nourishes my baby, and the bond of our

connected bodies nourishes me. I resist my body changing. I resist the disappearance of the

visual representation of our nourishment. I’m not ready to let go.</p>

<p>Soon, our bodies’ connection will end. Food will solely sustain his belly instead of

me. Only one year into my mothering journey and I already see how much of parenting requires

a continual physical act of letting go. Before his birth, my child tried to let go of my body too

soon. I went into premature labor with him at thirty-four weeks and four days. Our bodies were

ready too early. He’d showed no previous signs of early arrival, yet at 4am in the hospital, with a

partially dilated cervix, the doctor and nurses told me to prepare to meet my baby. Miraculously,

they postponed active labor with medicine. The contractions continued for weeks, but my baby

stayed inside my womb. Two weeks later, active labor returned, though this time my child stuck

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against my pelvis, unable to budge for hours. A large deep bruise covered his forehead at birth,

proof of his struggle. The same infant who nearly arrived six weeks early demanded to be cut out

of me because of an inability to separate his body from mine. Our bodies held on tight to each

other before his birth, but eventually, through external force, we both let go. Now, multiple times

a day he latches onto me, and we stay for a while, existing and nourishing together, just like we

did those hours he refused to be born. Tomorrow or next month or next year, my son will

breastfeed for the last time. He will let go and never latch back on. We’ll decide together that it's

time for our bodies to pull apart. And then we’ll find another way, my son and I, to hold each

other, before we release again.</p>

<div id=“biowrapper”>

<div id=“bio”>ALYSSA WITBECK ALEXANDER<span>

Alyssa Witbeck Alexander is a creative nonfiction MFA candidate at the University of Montana. She

is an editor for <em>Cutbank</em> and teaches college composition and creative writing. Her work

has been nominated for Best of the Net and has won the Original Utah Writing Competition. She is

published in <em>Rupture, Chicago Review of Books, Door is a Jar, Chestnut Review, </em> and

elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @lyswalexander and on her website

alyssawalexander.wixsite.com/website.</span></div></div>

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