“Can we plan a time for me to go on a trip solo when I’m done breastfeeding?”
This was a question that I asked my husband several months into breastfeeding our second child.
Don’t get me wrong – I love being able to not only feed my children this way but also to connect with them, and I know it is a blessing that not every mother is given.
That being said, just as when a mother is pregnant, when her child is born, her body is still not her own. From days old to months old, a baby needs to feed every few hours, and it can be quite demanding. Suddenly, more thought has to be given on whether or not you and your husband can go to that party or go on a date solo. And if you can, for how long? Do you bring the baby, or can he stay home with a sitter? Also, what on earth are you going to wear?
Then there is sleep. Remember those days back in college when you stayed up till the early morning hours with friends and hardly a care in the world? I look on those days and smile as I remember the joy held in those moments.
Just as I held joy last night as I groggily awakened to the sound of my 3-month-old crying in the bassinet beside my bed. I clumsily reached for my glasses, turned my nightstand lamp on, squinted to check the time to see how long he’d slept (three hours, not bad!) and lifted him into my arms as I nursed him back to sleep. In between my water bottle and the burp cloth, also on my nightstand, is my statue of Mary, Mother of Jesus – an image that has stood beside my bed ever since we’ve started praying for each one of our three children to be conceived. She is a reminder to me that despite how tired I might be during those nighttime feedings, my children are gifts which have been deeply prayed for.
I look in awe at my son, who has doubled in size since he was born three months ago. And he’s doubled in size through the miracle of me being able to nourish him with my body. All of those sleepless nights and outings cut short have shown up in healthy rolls around his body.
It’s a beautiful thing to be able to breastfeed, but it’s also messy. I know I’m not the first mom to have to shower off a few layers of milk after waking up in the morning and need multiple outfit changes throughout the day to stay fresh. Maybe a second shower too.
But this is when I am reminded that my body is a gift – something that my older sister taught me when she started a theology of the body group for me and my friends when we were teenagers. My body was a gift given to me by God and returned to him through the gift of my life to others. At 13 years old I did not fully grasp what this meant – rather, it just sounded like a beautiful string of words put together. Now, nearly 20 years later, I have a better understanding of this reality, and while messy, it is still beautiful.
While pregnant and postpartum, I always find encouragement from Romans 12:1: “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”
There is no other time that I feel that my body is so fully a living sacrifice as during the periods of pregnancy and postpartum. And while indeed it is a sacrifice I am making of my body, it is one which brings so much life.