Stories from Breastfeeding Mothers
(This photographic reproduction is considered to be in the the public domain in the United States)
Here is an excerpt from Getting Started with Breastfeeding: For Catholic Mothers that I thought you might enjoy. If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of this book, send me an email at catholicbreastfeeding@yahoo.com.
Sunday
by Marian Tascio Friedrichs, mother to Isaiah, Bernadette, Kateri and baby on the way
He starts asking as soon as we reach our pew. “Mama, wanna do nook. Wanna do noook.”
I glance at the nearest faces. They’re all bent over hymnals or turned toward the aisle, where Father sings with gusto behind the blank-faced, decidedly non-singing altar servers. I check the Baby Girl beside us. She is perched in her father’s arms, nibbling with hearty interest a button on his red-checked shirt. It is the same shirt he wore on our first date, when we smiled nervously at one another over roast chicken and sweet potato fries.
“Mama, do nook. Do nook, nook, nook, nooook!” The Little Boy is tugging on my shirt now, his upturned face a study in urgency.
“OK,” I whisper. “Just as soon as everyone sits down.” I scoop him up so he can see what’s going on. He sucks on my collar and gazes absently at the doings up front: the kissing of the altar, the settling of the people into their places. He whimpers his request a few more times during the opening prayers, and I promise soon, soon.
At last we sit, and he nestles into my lap. He is still a baby, this Little Boy who became a big brother one morning and turned two years old thirteen days later. At his birthday party he fell asleep in my lap, just like this, as the cake was being served. We have a picture of his father offering the cake to his curled-up figure. There are colored sprinkles and two candles, and beneath the white frosting, there is chocolate. But at that moment he needed only Mama. And Mama means this.
I lift my shirt, keeping my head down and hoping everyone around us is as rapt by the scripture readings as my Baby Girl is by the lights in the high ceiling. He snuggles in and latches. I listen to the readings, too.
We make it halfway through the homily before my Little Boy’s sister notices what he is doing and begins some whimpering of her own. Daddy and I trade off; the Baby Girl leans into me while the Little Boy sits beside his father, flips through a baby Bible and munches Cheerios, his face flushed with contentment. Filled, he has yielded to his sister without complaint.
I am grateful for that. Nursing them both at once is something I only do in certain places; it requires a lot of space, a lot of exposure, and only understanding witnesses. Typically, when we “do nook all together”, the Little Boy and Baby Girl have ignored each other, but sometimes these days she toys with his hair and he laughs. Lately they have been finding each other’s fingertips, exploring nails and knuckles, holding hands briefly as they top off their tanks of mother-love side by side.
The moment is coming. Daddy kneels; Little Boy stands on the kneeler and rests his chin on the back of the pew in front of us; I bow my head. Baby Girl feels so light in my arms after her big brother, but now her body grows heavy with encroaching sleep.
“Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you.”
I touch my heart; the Baby Girl begins her deep gulping. I ache a little as the milk lets down, and I think about my bones. I read somewhere that they break down a bit when we start feeding our first babies, but then the bones are replenished and become stronger than before. I picture the cells—white and spongy—drifting apart, giving themselves to the outflow that will become my children’s food and drink, only to regroup and regain one another—finding life by losing it.
“Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which will be shed for you and for all…”
She has stopped gulping. A droplet of milk escapes her slackening mouth. My blood. That’s what it’s made from. My life becomes her life. Her eyelids flutter slightly but stay closed. She hasn’t let go of my breast. It will be a trick, carrying her to the altar while keeping her asleep and myself covered up, but I’ve done it before many times.
I stand when our turn comes and whisper my usual prayer: “Take away my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.” I am begging to become what I eat.
And afterwards, while He melts inside me: “Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me…”
Later, as we file out the doors, Little Boy asks for another turn. The day is nearly half gone, and he is eager for rest and reconnection. But we tell him where we are going next, and thoughts of mama-milk give way to the anticipation of Grandma’s house, where there will be aunts and uncles, lunch and cake for Daddy’s birthday.
Twenty minutes into the drive, Baby Girl wakes up in her car seat. No one is touching her. No one is holding her. She does not know where we are. She begins to cry.
Her brother says, “She needs nook.”
More breastfeeding stories:
Breastfeeding stories from the Sears Family Women
Chronicles of a Catholic Nursing Mother
A Mom’s Experience Ecologically Breastfeeding and Tandem Nursing
Do you have a breastfeeding story you would like to share? If so, please share it in the comments! Thank you!
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