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Fed is Best

August 11, 2017 | N'tima Preusser

Into the blender glugs Tropicana orange juice, I stuff two giant handfuls of spinach, and plop frozen berries and mangos on top. The smoothie whirls into a stiff frozen paste and I slam the base of my janky blender against the counter an obnoxious amount of times to get it to mix completely. I pour it into my tall red Six Flags souvenir cup with the whistle straw, drink it down, and the baby in my belly dances. I imagine those dark green leaves being absorbed into her body and the risk of spina bifida, cleft palate, and cleft lip evaporate. I also pray it, coupled with my prenatal vitamin, reverses the effect of the mug brownies I devour each evening before bed. I feel so confident in the ways I am nourishing my child.

***

Four months later, I place the silicone shield over my breast and try to persuade my newborn to latch on. For weeks, I dance and sway and shush trying to get her screaming mouth to accept my body’s milk.

I breastfeed for 18 months even though it pains me, both physically and mentally, to do so because someone told me once, (and the internet shouted its echo over and over again) “breast is best!” My nipples sting, my body is touched out, and I am tired beyond all comprehension. I cannot leave her because I am so scared she will become hungry and my breasts will be out of reach. I wish someone would have told me it was okay to feed her formula.

***

It is Sunday morning and I scramble my two daughters the last two eggs, halve the last banana, and throw a couple dates onto their plates. They’re still hungry, but the pantry is now bare. I feel like I should tell you that we just moved and finances are different and we are trying so hard to ex out the nonessentials. I feel the need to explain myself, but the fact remains, my children’s stomachs are still growling and I don’t have food to feed them.

I skip breakfast and give them everything I have to offer. I take the sacrament bread at church. It tastes different today. I ask for forgiveness for their hunger.

I feel like I should tell you that we use our savings to buy bananas and cereal and almond milk after church. I am grateful we stashed away that extra tax refund cash into our savings account. I bake a loaf of bread, and Ana is hungry and hungry and hungry again and that bread is gone by bedtime.

I call and make an appointment with WIC the next morning.

***

Our four person family, including my husband in his stiff military uniform, sit in a stuffy waiting room with a single mom and her 18 month-old, and a young couple with a baby in a too-small car seat. We fill out our forms in sequence, and I want to run out the heavy glass doors. Classism hisses in my ear saying I don’t belong here, but our annual income says that we are right where we belong.

I force myself through the doorway of the first room where they ask about breastfeeding and I remember the struggle to feed them then. They send me onto the next step, and we sit on multicolor plastic chairs, until their names are called. The kids are measured and weighed and then they have to check their iron levels.

Ana’s body contorts away from the lady in the white coat. She pricks her finger, as my child screams in panic. She tells us to hold her at the elbow to keep her arm in place. I feel sick, my mind tells me I am torturing my child for free food. I imagine all of the milk we will be able to afford, the milk that will fill her belly on nights her legs are growing longer and our empty pantry cannot satisfy her hunger.

Olive’s iron is low and they tell me to feed her better. Anabel is underweight and they tell me to feed her more. A beautiful brown woman in a hijab tells me that two tablespoons of peanut butter are equivalent to one serving of meat and that I should feed her beans before bed. I feel like a bad mom for not knowing she needed to be eating more.

I feel like I should tell her I am trying, but more nights than not, I throw any meat offered to Ana in the trash. As a woman in the western world, I never imagined feeding my babies would weigh on me so much. I feel stupid saying this, I know we are blessed, but I still ache thinking that I am not doing enough, that I am relying too much on the government. The same government that my husband puts a uniform on every day for. We wait for the paychecks and I contemplate working every single week, but day care for two kids isn’t affordable, or practical—even on two incomes.

***

I walk through the aisles of the grocery store and read the manual WIC gave me, over and over again. I decode the pamphlet and try to find the brands they allow. Nothing is labeled and it takes me thirty minutes to find five items. I am embarrassed as I walk around aimlessly with my yellow folder wedged under my arm. I feel so stupid and dependent; taking things that don’t belong to me. I get to the cashier and I have to leave the eggs, juice, and cheese behind because somehow, I grabbed the wrong things. I accidentally picked the “natural” JIF peanut butter and not the original, so I sprint back to the aisle and grab the right one. I am out of breath and I feel like a burden to those waiting in line behind me. I want to weep for the women who rely solely on this program to feed their hungry children. I know it sounds ungrateful, but this system is an obstacle course. And there is so much shame attached to it.

***

I felt that shame when I considered shaking powder into a bottle when my girl was I baby. I felt that embarrassment force me into a bathroom stall to balance atop a toilet to breastfeed her. I felt it when I had to use a plastic shield over my nipple to trick her into eating. I felt it when the doctor told me she didn’t weigh enough when she was three months old, and again when we sat in that WIC office and she was too small, again. I felt it when I used those government appointed checks and the cashier huffed and puffed at me because she was confused with how to input the checks into her system. And I felt it in the eyes of my neighbor as her eyes filled with pity when I told her we enrolled in WIC.

I didn’t feel it when I saw full plates with peanut butter sandwiches and full cups of milk that resulted in full bellies—like a weight off of my back.

My girls are fed, and that is enough for today.

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In The Hard Stuff Tags wic, feeding babies
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Now, I have breastfed all three of my babies. I am a supporter, even an advocate, for breastfeeding, and I certainly don’t adhere to the notion that a mother must hide herself in a private back room, missing out on sunshine, conversation, or dinner in order to feed her baby. I have nursed my children in all sorts of unusual places—Chick-fil-A, church pews, formal New Year’s Eve parties, and an Eli Young Band concert. More often than not, it is my personal preference to use a cover up, but desperate times called for desperate boob-exposing measures. I wasn’t about to go sit in my hot van for 30 minutes to nurse a baby. This mama ain’t got time for that.
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I proceeded to shop as the suckle, suckle, swallow sound drowned out the cart’s squeaky wheels. I casually scanned produce and peeked inside an egg carton, acting as if this was my norm. I’m just the kind of mom who goes on about life with a baby attached to her nipple for all to see. No big deal. At first I avoided eye contact with other shoppers, particularly with the middle aged man who happened to need the same tub of Greek yogurt at the exact moment I bent over to grab mine. When I saw him lingering near the sweet potatoes and sneaking glances, I pulled down on my son’s chin, attempting to widen his latch and hide more of my breast. His mouth slipped off for a moment, and I’m pretty sure the man saw my boob. Welcome to motherhood.
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But a funny thing happened by the time I reached aisle four; I felt confident, almost proud. I felt like a mom. As it turns out, the past five years have produced a mom who knows what she’s doing every now and then.
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// From "The Man in Aldi Saw My Boob" by guest writer @joybellsbecker, new on C+C today. Link in profile

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Now, I have breastfed all three of my babies. I am a supporter, even an advocate, for breastfeeding, and I certainly don’t adhere to the notion that a mother must hide herself in a private back room, missing out on sunshine, conversation, or dinner in order to feed her baby. I have nursed my children in all sorts of unusual places—Chick-fil-A, church pews, formal New Year’s Eve parties, and an Eli Young Band concert. More often than not, it is my personal preference to use a cover up, but desperate times called for desperate boob-exposing measures. I wasn’t about to go sit in my hot van for 30 minutes to nurse a baby. This mama ain’t got time for that.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I proceeded to shop as the suckle, suckle, swallow sound drowned out the cart’s squeaky wheels. I casually scanned produce and peeked inside an egg carton, acting as if this was my norm. I’m just the kind of mom who goes on about life with a baby attached to her nipple for all to see. No big deal. At first I avoided eye contact with other shoppers, particularly with the middle aged man who happened to need the same tub of Greek yogurt at the exact moment I bent over to grab mine. When I saw him lingering near the sweet potatoes and sneaking glances, I pulled down on my son’s chin, attempting to widen his latch and hide more of my breast. His mouth slipped off for a moment, and I’m pretty sure the man saw my boob. Welcome to motherhood.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
But a funny thing happened by the time I reached aisle four; I felt confident, almost proud. I felt like a mom. As it turns out, the past five years have produced a mom who knows what she’s doing every now and then.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
// From "The Man in Aldi Saw My Boob" by guest writer @joybellsbecker, new on C+C today. Link in profile
Birth exposes you in ways you’re not expecting, and I don’t just mean the most private areas of your body, which are exposed to a room full of medical professionals. It exposes your heart, too. Never before have I been so incapable of hiding my innermost feelings; the love for my newborn son, the fear for my ruined body, the awareness of the fragility of life. My husband saw me at my weakest, in every possible way. Now, six weeks later, I feel exposed. Vulnerable. Naked. What if this experience has completely changed how he feels about me?
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My doctor gave me the green light to resume normal activity. I’m healed, she says. But here I am, sitting at a green light, frozen in place. Green light means go, but I’m scared to move forward.
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I take a step closer to the mirror, then shimmy out of my yoga pants and tank top, slipping on the black lace lingerie. Maybe he doesn’t see me the same way. But it’s possible that what he says is true, and after all this, he loves me even more. I want so desperately to trust him and let his reassurances drown out the self-deprecating voice in my head.
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God had to literally knock me off my feet for me to finally let someone see me completely. All I want to do right now is build my walls back up, but I won’t. Isn’t this the whole idea of marriage? Truly seeing someone and loving them anyway? And truly letting yourself be seen and letting yourself be loved?
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Our bedroom door quietly creaks open. I turn toward my husband, my heart racing with fear and anticipation and everything in between. Within seconds, he’s crossed the room, filling the space between us.
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His kiss tells me more than words possibly could.
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// From "Green Light Means Go" by an anonymous guest writer, new on C+C today. Link in profile.
A stack of puzzles sits atop our office desk. Each puzzle has at least one missing piece. We’ve searched couch cushions, rearranged furniture, and moved tables and dressers. We don’t give up, at least not yet; the stack of puzzles attests to that fact. Their presence reminding us to keep looking, to keep hoping to find what is lost.
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I want to tell my husband that our marriage, or our love more aptly, is like those missing puzzle pieces.
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Not necessarily lost for all time, but buried underneath something else.
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I try to remember the excitement and tingle of first love and the joy of being together on long car rides. Those feelings are still there, yet most days I fear they’re buried beneath the rigors and busyness of our day-to-day lives.
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Some days I’ll go to bed without saying goodnight or giving a good night kiss - not because I don’t feel anything, but because I just can’t do one more thing.
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My love lies hidden with the puzzle pieces under the couch.
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The other day, our daughter came running to us both. Cheering and exclaiming, “This, this, this!” as she shows us a puzzle piece. She places it in the missing hole. The puzzle is complete once again.
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She’s cheering, we’re cheering.
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The piece wasn’t lost, just waiting for us to find it. Waiting for us to be surprised by its presence once again.
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There are moments when my feelings of love come bursting forth. I want to cheer, too, like my daughter. “This, this, this. This is the love I know and felt.” I want to jump for joy again and fall into your arms.
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I hope we’ll keep unearthing this love, keep searching for it, for years to come. Leaving pieces of ourselves and this love wherever we go.
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We fit together, you and I.
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We belong together like the one missing piece that can’t be found until you’ve stopped looking for it, and find it suddenly right where you left it.
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// #loveafterbabies #ccfreewrite by #exhalecreativity member Kimberly Knowle-Zeller
"We’ll figure it out." They seem like rote, meaningless words, don’t they? If there’s a continuum from the solid confidence of “A Plan” to the futility of “Grasping at Straws,” “figuring it out” feels like it falls closer to the latter. In the face of fear and uncertainty about things as big and weighty as health and financial stability, it’s a solution so nebulous and ambiguous that it should fall flat upon delivery. Instead it has provided courage, absolution, and comfort by turn.
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Why?
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I can’t be sure, but I think it’s the “we” that makes the difference. My fear and shame is Jon’s. His worry and anxiety is mine. It’s not just my stuff to work through or his to deal with. It’s ours, and I’m learning that it’s just as much an act of love to allow someone else to carry your burdens as it is to be the one who offers to help. We’ll figure it out has become our shorthand for “I’m going to help you carry this and you’re going to let me because of the love between us.”
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It took six months of the tightest budget imaginable, but we figured out quitting my job.
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It took a few extra writing gigs and moving some money from savings, but we figured out the credit card bill.
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And it took two weeks of tests, but I was sitting in the doctor’s office with Jon when we found out that his heart is fine—the irregularities are harmless and nothing to worry about.
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After 10 years of marriage, we’ve learned there are times for plans and research and arguments and spreadsheets. And then there are times to close the computer, stop debating, and make the call. There are my battles, his battles, and the ones we fight together, guarding each other’s weak side. There are nights when we stay up for hours, talking through options. And there are nights when the only words we need are "I know." "I understand." "We’ll figure it out."
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// From "We'll Figure It Out" by @jennbatchelor, new on C+C today. Link in profile.
Her feet pitter patter across the tile floor as our daughter races toward the door. “Da! Da! Da!”
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I smile and stir the stew on the stovetop. The kitchen is warm, filled with the aroma of browned beef and stewed tomatoes. Glancing out the window, I’m surprised to find it’s still light outside--he hasn’t been home before dark in weeks.
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His truck shuts off, the dog kennel door clangs, and finally, his boots clomp across the porch.
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“Dad!” our son shouts as the front door squeaks open. “I want to show you something!”
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I hear him whispering to our girl in the entry. I add frozen peas to the bubbling pot on the stove.
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“Daddy, want to play play-doh with me?” our son asks.
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His hands are cracked and calloused, his sweatshirt dirty and faded. There’s mud on his pant leg and gray in his beard. His eyes are tired, but he puts our daughter on one knee, our son on the other, and scoops up a ball of play-doh without hesitation.
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He’s wearing the same black wool vest he wore on our wedding day six years ago. It’s faded to gray and it’s missing a couple of buttons. If you look closely at the seam you can see blue thread where I mended it last winter.
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That vest is a little like us.
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We’ve been torn apart by our egos and months-long unemployment, by our son’s undiagnosed cleft lip, and the feeding tube required to keep our daughter alive. We lost a button when the medical bills piled up, and another when we bought our fixer-upper.
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But we mended those places; our seams sewn back together with time and apologies and dedication.
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The way we love each other doesn't look how it used to, doesn’t feel the way it used to, either.
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Our love is no longer new and crisp. It’s worn and tested, like that faded old vest.
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And tonight, with soup on the stove and two babies on his lap, I can’t help but notice how good he looks in gray.
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// #loveafterbabies #ccfreewrite by #exhalecreativity member @carastolen
On a whim, I book a nursing photography session. It’s fall, and I buy new clothes for the session because that’s what you do in the fall. Time seems to be slipping from us as I move on autopilot, and years later, I can’t tell you how we spent our days. I only recall all the crying in the middle of the night, my hands that shook all the time, and how scared I was of what was happening, and what was to come. Then, what races through my head on repeat: I am a woman who gets left, a woman whose husband is sleeping with someone else, a woman who can’t even convince the father of her children to call them regularly. There is nothing worthy about me. "Put your fat stomach away. It’s ugly." Everything about my sons is magnificent and as much of a failure as I am, I am the only person they have to take care of them. That fact holds me hostage more than the voice in my head—"I don’t want to ever see that again. Do you understand?"—otherwise, I would never get out of bed.
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When the photos from the nursing session land in my inbox, it’s not the fading sun embracing us or the brilliant framing that catches my attention. It’s the way my baby is reaching for my face as he nurses, his eyes locked on mine, so it seems we are almost the same person still. My shirt is pushed down around my breast; you can hardly tell we are nursing: we could be just another baby and mama pair captivated by one another. My breath catches as I realize, he loves me. I don’t know what my baby sees in me, and over the next few days I become obsessed with flipping through the photos and trying to understand: What have I missed about myself, the person who doesn’t deserve to be loved?
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// From "Putting Fat Stomachs in Their Place" by guest writer @lacianne.schmidt, new on C+C today. Link in profile.

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