Spilled Milk

My little boy has sweet, round cheeks and no hair. A few wisps are starting to sprout, but he likely won't have anything close to a full head until he is two. Even without hair, his perceptive gaze gives him a gravity beyond the handful of months he has collected since birth.

Everyone says my little boy is observant for a baby. His grey-blue eyes watch everything I do as I mop up the spilled breast milk. I hate his eyes on me in this moment. I know he won't remember, but that does nothing to assuage the guilt as I sob openly over literal spilled milk.

My little boy is healthy and gaining weight, but he never latched, pushing me to pump eight times a day, three times at night. Even with my rigid adherence to this schedule, I cannot produce enough. I have to supplement almost half of his bottles with formula.

My little boy is meeting all of his milestones and is even ahead in some areas. But what if? What if I stop pumping, stop giving him my milk and he has a learning delay? What if I could have tried a little harder and the nutrients that only I can produce would have made a difference? What if using only formula shifts his trajectory in life? What if I am not trying hard enough to be a good mom?

I know something is wrong, has been wrong, since I gave birth to my little boy. I cry too much and have thoughts about dark things. I do what they say to do. I go on walks, I engage in play with the baby, I am searching for a therapist, and have an appointment to talk to a psychiatrist. I saw my medical chart when the doctor pulled it up at my last postpartum check-in, and ugly red font sat at the top warning: SUICIDE RISK. I know something is wrong, but if I try a little harder, it will be ok.

I finish cleaning up the spilled breast milk and have a crazy moment where I consider squeezing out the paper towel into my little boy’s mouth. It took three pumping sessions to gather enough for this one bottle, and I just wasted it with my clumsiness. I need to try harder.

Fever from mastitis - a clogged milk duct infection - has burned through me three times while my husband took off work to watch our little boy. The ER doctors gently suggested I stop breastfeeding, but they don’t understand. Breast is best. I can do it if I just make a little more time for pumping and if I can get my emotions under control.

On the rare occasion I take my little boy out of the house to visit friends, I see them exchange worried glances. ‘You can stop, you know?’ They say it from a place of logic. They don’t understand. None of them have children, none of them feel the weight of another’s existence pulling them down into a place where each decision could have life or death consequences. They see an obsession and sleep deprivation, and think there is a simple fix. I know how important it is to keep going, regardless of my own needs.

I am miserable as I mix a bottle of formula for my little boy. I only have five minutes, and then I will need to pump again if I am to stay on schedule. He has only slept fifteen minutes in the last two wake windows, so I will have to try and rock him while I am connected to the pump. I have done it before, it isn’t so bad. But he gets agitated so easily these days. I worry he is starting to absorb my anxiety more effectively than he is absorbing my nutrients.

The bottle is ready just as my little boy starts to cry. I hurry to connect the flanges for pumping and settle him in my arms, twisting the tubes and wires around his little body so my milk can flow into the bottles. It hurts every time. Apparently, this isn’t normal, but nothing I do alleviates the pinch and pull. For him, it is all for him. I can do it.

My little boy fusses and refuses the bottle, his cries rising into the ragged, hiccuping scream that only a newborn can produce. His arms windmill, catching the tubes and tangling us both. The rhythmic sound of the pump is slowly drowned out by his protests, and I drop the bottle as I fumble to soothe him. One of the flanges pops off my breast, and my milk begins to leak onto my stomach.

My little boy’s cries are drowned out by my own sobs as I realize that I can’t try any harder. I have done my best, and it isn’t working. My mental health has crumbled, and I have nothing left I can use to piece it back together. The guilt bubbles up as I think about the cost of formula, the chemical-based diet, my own failings as a female mammal that should be able to easily feed her young. All of the thoughts that usually steel me and help me right the ship and keep on with the process. But this time is different.

My little boy kicks out, and the other flange is knocked loose. Even he is tired of my self-inflicted torture. As the pump is tugged off my body, the reality of the situation seeps into the torn-up shreds of my mind. He is healthy and strong and will do fine fed on formula.

My little boy is healthy and strong and will be fine fed on formula! In that moment, I decide that this will be my new mantra. This will have to be my decision if I have any hope of not only being a good mother, but of surviving in general. It will have to be enough because you know what? I quit.