A Bad Day

Today was a bad day. Now, it wasn't, they suspended the constitution and George Bush declared himself President for life, bad; nor was it, Two root canals!?!?, bad. It wasn't even, Oh God, the boy found the magic markers again, bad. No, it was nothing like that, but in our home, it was bad. Today was a milk-dumping day.

Our daughter doesn't take a bottle, never has. Well, that's not quite accurate; there was that one time. With the end of my wife's maternity leave looming we had been trying to get our little girl to transition from breast to bottle. She was not cooperating. She wanted nothing to do with anything but the natural dispenser. I feared the worst; a screaming starving baby and no option but to haul her down to my wife's office every four hours for a fill-up (top it off, Mac - with premium). On the much-feared first day back to work, my wife wished me luck and set off. I prepared a bottle while the girl slept, knowing it was futile and my sad fate was already sealed. When she barely stirred from her slumber, I held my breath and slipped the bottle's nipple into her mouth. Prayers were offered and after a moment, she began to suck. She drained the whole thing and smiled. I was giddy. I called my wife. "Guess who just downed her entire bottle," I chimed, gleefully. "You're kidding," she said, genuinely surprised. "Nope, I think this might work out after all," I boasted. Yeah, right. That was the first and last time she ever took a bottle.

Whether the problem was a temperature issue, or timing, or the way I held her, or the synthetic quality of the delivery system, I had no idea. The girl wasn't talking and so we, she and I, had to find a middle ground; a middle ground that consisted primarily of her screaming and my tolerance of it until her mother arrived home for lunch and after work to satisfy her hunger more traditionally. We survived. A routine was developed. Our daughter came to expect her meals at a certain time and we learned not to muck with that timing and to provide her with a breast. The truce, for the most part, held.


My wife, however, still pumped milk while at work. The problem with leaking and with maintaining the continued production could only be solved with the pump. So, every night my wife would come home with little containers of milk. They were transferred to their little bags, marked with a production date, combined into larger ziplock bags and slipped into cold storage to be frozen. They joined all the other bags that my wife had filled when ramping up for her return to work; giant milk blocks that by now, blotted out the freezer light. All that milk was, of course, for use by our daughter, the same one who now refused all but the freshest of meals. My wife continued to hold out hope. Maybe, just maybe the kid would take a bottle. Maybe, just maybe, she would come back from the dark side. After all, all that work pumping, all that natural goodness my wife had spent so much of herself making, just couldn't go to waste. So, the milk cubes sat in the freezer, daily adding to their numbers, and like bad tenants, none of them ever moved out.

Breastmilk has an expiration date. Even frozen, it only lasts so long. The number used is three months, after which the experts recommend disposal. With the day of doom for the first batch of expirees approaching, my wife, though not quite in denial, was dragging her feet, putting off the inevitable in the hope the girl would see the light. I didn't push, even though the freezer was now little more than a milk bank. My wife would have to make the call.

Finally one morning, as I wandered into the kitchen, there it was. The milk producer was pulling a ziplock bag filled with frozen goodness from storage and dumping it, thunk, thunk, thunk, into the sink. The look on her face was resignation and her mood, if not inconsolable, was obviously sad. I hugged her and all she could muster was a quiet, "Damn her."

Every month or so the scene has repeated. A giant bag of smaller bags of frozen breastmilk is unloaded into the sink, to melt and disappear down the drain. The freezer can now hold adult food again, the igloo of milk diminished considerably. My wife still feels the bitterness of work gone to waste, of being underappreciated, though she understands that isn't really the case. She has found little ways to feel better. We ran out of cowmilk one morning and our son was treated to cereal and momma-milk. He didn't mind and she felt a degree of redemption. When our daughter started on solid food her baby cereal was mixed with pumped breastmilk, so all was not lost - though the supply of the frozen stuff still far exceeds the meager demands.

Our daughter still nurses. She likes it, and her mother likes it. I suppose they will continue until one of them doesn't like it anymore, which may be soon as the girl's new teeth are sharp. They are in the family room now, mother and daughter. Whenever my wife has a dumping day it seems she slips off as soon as the deed is done and lets our girl latch on. I think it makes her feel better. As I type this I have just heard a shriek from the other room - the familiar sign of too-eager teeth. The shriek is followed by a pause, and then, a gentle admonition, "Please don't do that, honey. It hurts. Be nice to mommy." They are working things out.