Mommy, Can I Please Nurse?

By Prajna

It was six months into my second pregnancy when I woke up and my cervix was spotting blood, accompanied by very intense contractions. Our midwife that assisted my first child's home birth was willing to support our decision to have our twins birthed at home. Given that I was thirty-nine we agreed to create a back up hospital plan. This morning when I phoned her, she urged me to call the local hospital. Leaving my twenty-one-month-old daughter with her dad, I went to the hospital sure I would return later that afternoon. Little did I know that when I started to engage with traditional medical technology, for better or worse, I was signing off the strength of my instinctual relationship with my body, our babies, and the warmth of our home.

Upon arrival to the hospital on Friday morning, the contractions were very regular and an examination revealed that I had begun to dilate. I had expressed to the doctors that my first child came in under two hours. This may not have been the best thing to say, as it set off an alarm that managed to have me helicoptered to Stanford Medical Hospital. The staff had assured me that if the babies were born right then, Stanford could handle it; whereas they, themselves, did not have the up to date technology. The helicopter ride revealed an air of stillness, where something inside felt very relaxed and calm, but as soon as we landed at Stanford Hospital the high drama resumed.

It didn't take long for my patience with the medical staff to run thin. Each time someone came in with an intervention, be it a faulty monitor, a cervical check, or the need to wake me up to see if I was okay, contractions would start up again. Whenever they left the room, my whole system would relax. It was an interesting paradox: this state of relaxation followed by contraction, and it ebbed and flowed like this quite regularly for the next two days. On Monday morning a new medical team had arrived and decided that I had dilated to the point of no return. It was time for the delivery room, or in this case, the operating room.

Utterly perplexed by the entire state of affairs, I found I had no energy in me to resist. Even to this day, when I feel completely overwhelmed by my daughters' present conditions and the complexity of their care, I wonder about what transpired that day. The heart rate monitor they used that weekend to check the pulse and size of fetuses never seemed to give an accurate reading. The team admitted that the monitor was inconsistent yet they were reluctant to call in a highly skilled technician with a more reliable machine, as it was the weekend. The doctors had guessed the fetuses were two and a half pounds, thus big enough for me to be able to have the desired vaginal birth. However, an accurate reading was never established and a lot of guessing took place.

The voices of my partner, our midwife, and a good friend that were present were not heard. I remember not wanting my frustration to affect the babies. I wanted everyone to leave so I could feel within my body what was needed. This request was not honored. At times I felt so humiliated with a sense of being out of control of my body that an earlier conditioned reaction would kick in. I needed to be stronger that an old tendency to check out of feeling all together. This feeling did not take over and I was able to stay with this process.

Later that morning, the chief doctor had rolled dad and me into the operating room in a rather urgent manner. As soon as we entered that sterile arena, I felt my body shut down. The bright lights, the cold table, and all the things I had heard about and swore would never happen to me became a reality. Some aspect of my being was in shock and felt closed off, while at the same time there was another aspect that was very huge, containing the entire experience, and would not close off. This utter openness was radiantly present. It was amazing to have both experiences taking place simultaneously.

Not much time went by before the chief doctor lost patience with the fact that my body had decided to stop and hold the babies inside. He ordered pitocin. Wow, was that a surprise!  I'm not sure what the Doctor's had intended to happen, yet all hell broke loose in my body, like major whiplash throughout my entire pelvic region. The pain was unbearable. The anesthesiologist had previously set me up for an epidural in the event the vaginal birth didn't work out. The intensity and duration of that pain was so great, right then I requested to have it.  Knowing how intense and shocking this was to my own body, I can't begin to imagine how it was for those tiny little babies.  At the same time, I felt completely out of control to do anything about it.

In what seemed like moments, the doctors decided they needed to operate and take the twins out. After hearing this, I had a very profound experience. While I could not feel a single physical sensation, something within me knew the moment the girls were born. I knew the very instant the umbilical cord was cut and their bodies began to breathe separate from mine. Two teams of medically-trained people were equipped to receive our babies. I was aware of a high level of urgent movement around me. On a deeper level, in that moment, I knew all was well. Fear was not present. The reactive energy of others in the room did not match a profound sense of peace that was emerging from within. I recalled the day a sonogram indicated I was pregnant with twins and a mixture of trepidation and great anticipation pulsed through my system. It had felt as though a larger impulse had taken over.

After this mind-boggling birth, I was extremely heart broken to learn that our twins weighed barely over a pound each, and could not possibly have survived a vaginal birth. I could not help to wonder, what the hell were those Doctors thinking? Dr. Sunshine told Dad and me that our daughters were in good hands. Baby "A" weighed 1.2 pounds and was doing fine. Baby "B" weighed 1.4 pounds and had required four hours of CPR, they almost her twice, now, she was stable. I laid there unsure of what I was recovering from, perhaps armed robbery or assault with a deadly weapon. My body was spared of all feeling yet I ached to hold and nurse my babies. I can't recall how long it was until I first saw them, maybe it was two days. I remember they were two weeks old before I could hold them. I remember watching their tiny still bodies, smaller than my own hand, covered with what looked like plastic wrap, with bright warming lights in an open bed amongst and array of lights, bells, gadgets, and alarms.

It had been three days since I saw my toddler, Autumn. She had been staying with her aunt. I was able to see her just as the medication was wearing off and I could feel the incision. I remember Autumn lying on my bed and sticking her belly out as if to be pregnant. Perhaps she wondered if she could look like mom, could she stay with mom? That had been her first time away from me. She did not have time to wean from my breast. We had practiced natural parenting, shared sleep, nursed regularly, and responding to her cues and wearing her in a sling. We were attached to each other in a very healthy way. At this point Autumn had not shown many signs of distress. I can not be sure what her perception was. She was acting fairly normal imitating mom, exploring the hospital, and holding on tight in a new environment. 

I was in the hospital for about four days before we were transferred to the Ronald McDonald House, a housing arrangement for families that have children in the hospital and live too far away to visit regularly. We spent three months traveling back and forth from our room there to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the hospital. Contrary to the opinion of the current medical team, I insisted that my babies only get my breast milk and no formulas. Baby Autumn became my reference point for what was natural for our twins. Each time a staff person tried to convince me to give up nursing, or that my babies needed formula to grow. I inwardly referred to my experience with Autumn and the fact that my babies had latched on and nursed without a problem. My heart went out to the young mom's in the NICU, as I repeatedly over heard the same litany of directives to formula feed their sick babies. If I did not have Autumn as my first teacher, perhaps I also would have fallen prey to uninformed advice.

For the first two weeks, Autumn would imitate me pumping for Abby and Libby. It was very cute. However, I noticed that as strong as she was trying to be, something began to change in her. She was starting to have great difficulty speaking. She was stuttering at times, and constantly hanging by my side in a nervous sort of way. Her spirit seemed broken. One afternoon, as we were getting ready to go see the babies, she said, "Mamamamommmy, can I nurse?" I felt her challenge and looked into her big blue eyes and said, "Of course you can, honey." I picked her up, unable to take my eyes off of her, and watched her latch on like lightning. It was the height of my nursing experiences. The look on her face when she let go was worth more than anything money could buy. Her stutter cleared up immediately and her natural, toddler joy returned. She continued to nurse for several more months.

At this same time Abby's intestines were infected and had perforated. She required a very high risk surgery, one that had not yet been performed successfully. Since she was so tiny, only a pound, they would have forty five minutes at the most to remove all of the infected parts of her intestines. They warned me that even if they did get all of the infection she would require tube feedings, regular medications, liver transplants and a short life expectancy. The strength of our bond while she suckled and locked onto my eyes gave me a sense of the strength of her spirit, still I wondered how much more could such a tiny form endure. She already had laser surgery on both eyes, a valve tied at her heart, and many needles injected into her tiny veins.

After Abby's surgery I was still able to nurse her. Amongst multiple wires, tubes and a colostomy bag, we managed just fine. I do not remember a time with my swollen baby on my lap peering into my tear filled eyes nursing to her hearts content that I felt I was doing something wrong. I was nagged that she was not gaining enough weight and that I needed to give her formula. I protested that it was because she cried inconsolably when I was not there that she burned off calories. They complained of her crying, I argued, she needed to be held and carried more often. Three months later, the doctors brought Abby back to the operating room to check her intestines and to sew her up. To their great surprise, for the first time in medical history her entire small intestines grew back. Not only did it grow to a normal size, it was completely healthy. I told them it was because she was given nature's best medicine, mother's milk without anything unnatural added to it. After that, the nurses that I needed to be most vigilant with about not giving Abby formula were then very willing to wear her in the baby carrier when I could not be there at night. They found that she did sleep better and shortly gained enough weight so I could bring her home.

Libby came home a month before Abby. I often found myself chuckling while nursing baby Libby and Autumn at the same time. Autumn had such a huge head and Libby's was so tiny. Gradually, I let Autumn know that when Abby came home from the hospital, the baby was going to need to nurse more often and it would be time for Autumn to be finished. To this, she said, "Okay." In the meantime, she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She needed that intimate assurance. Quite magically, on the very same day I found out that Abby would come home; Autumn had puckered off the breast in the morning, looked right up to me, and matter-of-factly stated, "Mommy, I'm all done."

There is an intelligence in our bodies that knows far more than our conceptual knowledge of life, about how things should or ought to be. Listening to our children provides a portal into this incredible magic genie inside all of us that is capable of taking care of life. All we need to do is let go of what sometimes feels irresponsible and to make our own choices based on what our children, our bodies and our deeper wisdom reveal to us. Magic is then allowed to happen. In this way, we are nourished by life, nursed rather than pained.

Earlier, when Autumn had stuttered, saying, "Mommy, can I nurse?" it was her body that had gotten my attention more than her words. I had felt her body saying, "Something's not feeling settled. We're not quite finished." Those last few months of sitting with Autumn and watching her suckle were the most fulfilling moments ever as a mother. I didn't have to decide or do anything about trying to end it. Nature simply ran its course.