Mama-Come-Lately

First, some housekeeping: This post is partially about boobs and what they were made to do.

For the record: I am pro-breastfeeding. But I am neither pro- nor anti-formula, despite having raised my kid on it.

For the non-parents: When a formula baby turns one, it’s time to switch to cow’s milk. This blessed event happened recently at our house, and man. So great. No more measuring, carefully jiggering sticky powder into a bottle, shaking like mad, hoping it all dissolved. No more calculating how many bottles I’d need over the next 24 hours (they turn to poison after that!). And a bit more ease in the budget — even though the price of milk is way up these days, formula is still vastly more expensive.

I did not plan to use formula. For reasons including an unexpected C-section and other events around the birth that left me rattled and sad, and perhaps the simple, hard fact of my age, my body never produced what my baby needed to thrive. This, despite trying everything I had the energy for while caring for and worrying about my newborn: Pumping around the clock. Going to a lactation consultant when the baby was two weeks old. Drinking a certain tea. Eating certain foods. Keeping the baby in skin-to-skin contact as much as I could, so much so that I dozed off with him on my chest a few times and scared the bejesus out of myself.

Now, if you’ve met me, you know what a cruel irony this is. I am built like a peasant. I broke an underwire bra last week, for crying out loud. And still, I could not get my inborn faucets to turn on.

For a long time, I couldn’t think about this intensely personal failure without crying, which sounds dramatic, and was dramatic. But it was just one more disappointment, one more baby-related thing that didn’t go the way I thought it should have. So being bitch-slapped by the reality that my body was once again not going to do what it was designed to do was heartbreaking, and infuriating. The one consolation: Baboo didn’t give up on my boobs until he was five months old.

All of this, the totality of my experience, is why I am neither pro- nor anti-formula. I didn’t want to use it. I called it horrible names. But I needed it. My baby needed it. I am grateful for it.

I still believe breast is best, but if that’s not the best option for whatever reason, then go Ye with my blessings and spend your precious ducats on formula. I will not judge you, not only because that’s not my job, but I judged myself so harshly, and guess what? It didn’t help, and it didn’t change anything.

And if you do use formula, oh Honey! Call me on the day you get to ditch it for cow’s milk — I’ll come to your house and cheer as you crack open that first, liberating gallon of milk.