On Sunday I broke out my breast pump for the first time since I weened Isabella. We were waiting for Melanie to get to be almost 4 weeks old, as some say that if you give a baby a bottle before 4 weeks then the baby will get confused between bottle/breast and may develop issues with latching onto the nipple (and thus could ultimately reject the breast).
A breast pump is a truly amazing device. You plug it into the wall, put these suction cup thingies onto your breasts, and 5-8min later - a bottle of breast milk for your baby. The truly amazing part, though, is the scenarios it enables. When you don't use a breast pump and have a newborn, you are completely at the mercy of that baby's hunger needs. Many people don't realize how intense this can be, as a newborn will nurse (at times) every 20min for 2 hrs straight. Of course sometimes you get long 1-3hr breaks as well, but you never know when the baby will be in a nursing frenzy mode or a conked out mode. So you are on call at every moment. Then comes the day you pump your milk! You put the cups on, crank the machine up to max (once you get used to what at first feels like torture), extract some milk, hand the bottle to your husband, and voila - FREEDOM!
As luck would have it, the breast pump equals freedom for the father too. Imagine how it is for John - the doting father and loving husband. He wants to help, wants to be a primary caregiver to his child, wants to give his wife time to herself. So when Melanie cries, he rocks her, sings to her, cuddles with her, does everything he can to soothe her until he eventually has to say "I give up. She needs to nurse." It has to be a bit frustrating to have to cry uncle like that, to not be able to take care of all of her needs himself. So once the breast pump is in the picture, John is totally empowered to have father-daughter time without having to, at some point, feel like a failure. He has all the tools he needs to soothe his sweet babe, all the tools he needs to give his wife a break. Everyone wins.
The first item on my "What I want to do with my new found freedom" list was, of course, YOGA! I hadn't taken a practice since before Melanie was born, so it was with great excitement that I pumped my milk and threw on my yoga clothes. I then went up to my yoga studio, sat on my mat, crossed my legs, and gazed upon the beautiful view of the Cascade mountains. WOW! How lucky I am! As soon as I sat down I flooded with a sense of peace. There I was, sitting in my large, airy, bright, perfect, home studio. It was impossible to not burst with a sense of gratitude. I closed my eyes, began to meditate, and filled with the memory of how the studio came to be. When John and I got together we each owned our own homes about 6 blocks apart. Part of my home had been converted into a yoga studio. His home was bigger and nicer and was the obvious choice for where we would live together once we got more serious. He told me, very early on when we were first discussing living together, that of course I should not lose a yoga studio in the deal, and that he would use every penny he had to build me one at his home. Sure enough, he made good on that promise and built me the yoga studio of my dreams.
So there I sat in my beautiful studio - the studio that is a symbol of my husband's love for me, the place I spend time in when I need to heal, the room I use to help others heal and find peace, the room where no one is ever angry with me, no one ever judges me. There I sat, and I found peace. I did a few stretches, layed around on the floor with cushions in certain ways to open up my stiff body, and meditated some. In the end, though, it didn't really matter what I did, all I needed to do was be there, and something in me healed just a little bit more.
I am thankful that I have such a place to go, that I have such a loving husband who supports me in finding time for myself, and that I have my trusty breast pump! Life, as always, is good.
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