2002, Newport, Rhode Island

By Sarah Raleigh Kilts

After 22 hours of labor, two hours of pushing and an emergency C-section, she finally made her appearance.

As soon as I mouthed my sultry “well hello there, baby,” my newborn daughter immediately stopped crying. Indra took a few short, choppy breaths, let out a big sigh and opened her eyes. She then looked at me and started smacking her lips with relish. This was the first sign of things to come.

By the next day, the nurses in the hospital referred to Indra as “the Pistol” because in the rare moments that they took her away from me, she screamed like a banshee until she was back in my arms and, for the most part, attached to my nipples. She was truly as thunderous and demanding as her namesake, the Hindu god of the sky.

I nursed around the clock, holding Indie in one arm as I clumsily tried to balance my new bible, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, in the other. Each time I sat down to feed her, I would flip through its pages for reassurance that this whole procedure was normal. I had cracked, sore nipples, my breasts leaked like faucets, and waking up to nurse three times at night was exhausting in a way I never knew possible.

I was incredulous that billions of women before me had endured such a thing, many of them voluntarily repeating the feat numerous times. A womanly art indeed! The book’s mantra, “nurse your child as long as you can,” became my own. I religiously attended the weekly Breastfeeding Support Group at our local birthing center, which my new-mom friends loving referred to as “boob group.”

Under the instructions of the lactation consultants that ran the group, I tried to approach the challenges of breastfeeding one week at a time. Just telling myself, “I can do it for one more week” kept me from getting overwhelmed, and as time went on, the whole process got much easier.

In fact, once I got used to breast feeding, it seemed infinitely easier than bottle feeding: nothing to clean or warm up, always available! Before I knew it, Indra was walking and talking and yes, still nursing. As soon as she could start talking, “na-nas” became our word for my breasts and nursing time.

Initially, I felt very comfortable with my own decision to continue nursing for as long as I could, but over time, I silently began to wonder whether it was my decision. Very tall and lean, Indie was a high-energy toddler whose nutritional needs were vast. At 18 months old, she was a bottomless pit. She still nursed eight times a day in addition to eating three meals and two snacks of table food. But hey, who’s counting?

I had never given Indie formula. She hated bottles, and I hated breast pumps. Although I tried to vary up her diet daily, she also rejected cow, soy and rice milk, flinging the sippy cup to the floor and laughing. I was convinced that the people who came up with the concept of child-led weaning would have changed their theory, had they been met with the stubborn mockery I was facing from my little Pistol.

Like any toddler, Indra became very possessive. One day, as I argued at length with her about whose na-nas they were, I realized that even if she wasn’t ready to start weaning, I certainly was.

I did it slowly, cutting out one nursing at a time. I finally tricked her into drinking cow’s milk by mixing a little Hershey’s chocolate syrup into it. So much for my “earth mother” shtick. She was 2 and a half years old before I was finally able to say, “Mommy’s na-nas don’t have any more milk in them.”

“Let me try,” Indie offered to test my statement. But I pushed back, saying, “No, it hurts Mommy now.” Perhaps I tapped some deep well of compassion. For some reason, she didn’t ask again – until the next night.

Every night after that, we had a little ritual: at 7 p.m., like clockwork, she would come over, climb in my lap and say, “I want na-nas.” As she sucked her thumb and gave my breast a squeeze with her free hand, I would say, “I’m sorry, but the na-nas don’t have any more milk in them,” and I would give her a hug and a kiss.

Years later, it surprises me that this call-and-answer ritual is what finally worked. As Indie’s third birthday drew near, talk of na-nas dwindled. She simply plopped herself and a book down on my lap when she was ready for bed. She still assumed a nursinglike position, though her left thumb (which she says tastes better than her right one), took the place of the na-nas.

Her left cheek and pinky would rest upon one breast, while her other hand reached across and snuck under my shirt to my other breast. I guess she figured that if she couldn’t have a taste, she could at least cop a feel.

One evening, not long after she turned 3 years old, Indie reminded me, in no uncertain terms, that she still knew what she was missing. She gently nudged against me and, with a deep sigh, buried her head in my chest. She removed her thumb from her mouth, lightly placed both her hands on my breasts and sweetly looked me in the eyes as she said, “na-nas are round and soft like kisses.”

As I sat beaming with pride at her poetic words, her face took on a very serious expression. She stared me down for a few long seconds, her brow furrowing. Then she withdrew her arms, stood back up and put her hands on her hips, issuing her final proclamation on the issue: “But I like na-nas better!”

Sarah Raleigh Kilts is a writer who lives with her daughter and husband in the San Francisco Bay Area. A member of the Berkeley-based Motherlode Writers group, she is currently working on her first novel. In her spare time, Sarah plays bass and sings with her husband, Tom, in their band, Diablo’s Dust.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 | Email This Post

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