Smiles Awake You

[dedalus_1947]

Golden slumbers fill your eyes
Smiles awake you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullaby
(Golden Slumbers: Lennon/McCartney)

With hands and arms full, Prisa and I made our way to the 5^th floor of the West Wing of Torrance Memorial Medical Center, the hospital where Sarah was born 8 days before. I was carrying my camera case in one hand, holding Sarah in her massive, travel seat in the other, and wearing my backpack. Prisa carried the diaper changing satchel and her nursing pillow.
“We’re looking for Conference Room H,” she said as we exited the elevator into an expansive, carpeted, lobby area.
Approaching a closed door with a free standing “In Session” sign next to it, a nervous young man, wearing a brown tee shirt walked out carrying a bawling infant. It occurred to me that he was going the wrong way, but I said nothing, and followed Prisa through the door.
“Welcome,” a plump and cheery, middle-aged woman in a flowery, pink smock said, as we entered the room. “Sign in and then read the yellow clipboard on the chair. Your husband can take that nursing pillow,” she added. “You won’t need it.”
“I’m not…” I began explaining, but stopped as Prisa gave me a, Dad, don’t embarrass me look, and handed me her nursing pillow.
“You know, you can put her down, Dad” Prisa said, indicating the portable infant seat with the sleeping baby, which I refused to release. I had carried her that way since detaching the device from the car seat in the parking lot. It had been strange at first, swinging a baby by my side as we walked, but I saw its convenience. These modern, portable infant seats were marvelous contraptions. Once the baby was securely strapped into the cushioned capsule, it could readily be attached and detached from a car seat mount or a stroller. An adjustable, rubberized bar served as a safety guard and handle, and you could carry the entire device comfortably by your side, like a small suitcase. In fact walking with the carrier by your side created a swinging motion that mimicked the rolling sensations of a car ride that rocked babies to sleep. I placed Sarah’s carrier on the carpet next to a chair and looked around the room. It was large and barren, with a sign-in and literature table by the entrance, and 10 cushioned chairs with nursing pillows and clipboards on the seat, pushed against the walls. Two women were already in the room - an Asian woman standing next to a chair, intently reading the clipboard, and a blonde-haired woman who was bouncing a baby on her shoulder. Two empty infant pods lay on the floor by their chairs.
“Thanks, Dad,” Prisa said, impatiently. “You can go, now.” That’s when I realized that there were no men in the room, only the nursing mothers, and the female consultant.
“Okay, then,” I said, uncertainly. “I guess I’ll see you and Sarah later.” I took the nursing pillow in one hand and started toward the door, stopping at the table to pick up some handouts. There was a variety of literature on postpartum support groups, tips on flu shots, and lots of material on breastfeeding. I passed the man in the brown tee shirt, still holding the crying baby in the hallway. Sarah hadn’t emitted a peep since we clicked her infant seat into the car mount when we left home that morning. She had fallen asleep in the car, and awakened briefly in the parking lot as I fumbled at detaching her from the seat mount. Her big, curious eyes followed each of my actions until I finally freed her, and then closed when we started walking. I passed another woman by the elevator, pushing a wide, forest green stroller in front of her. She parked the stroller in the hallway next to the door, detached the carrier, and went in. Suddenly the Asian woman’s head peeked out of the door, searching for the man holding the baby, and grabbed the still crying child from his arms. The frazzled and ruffled-haired man passed me in the hallway with a beatific look of relief on his face. I assumed he was heading for the refuge of the cafeteria or a cigarette, somewhere away from the building.

I took a seat in the waiting area down the hall from the conference room where I could see everyone entering or leaving the conference room. I wasn’t sure how long the class would last, and didn’t want to miss Prisa and Sarah if they left early. Even at that distance, I could hear the muffled cries of an infant behind the closed door of the class. I wondered if it was the same child who was crying earlier, or if other infants were now joining in. It wasn’t the exaggerated wailing that comes in forceful waves from infants being cleaned, changed, and dressed. This was a series of staccato, irritated bawling that comes from general annoyance. Having been around Sarah on six occasions now, I was beginning to differentiate the sounds and styles of crying. I remembered how Toñito and Prisa communicated their feelings and moods by crying: long, whiny, moaning; sharp yelping, with gulped pauses for breath; or stressful yammering. The high-pitched screeching was the worst, and that was the sound emanating from the conference room. It had been 32 years since I’d heard an infant cry like that, and it still caused my adrenaline to kick into gear. What could that baby be so upset about, I wondered? Was the child hungry, or was the feeding causing the unpleasantness? It was only after our own children were out of their infancy that I realized that the crying of babies did not bother me. I was alert and apprehensive when they wept, but I was more ready to help, carry, croon, and walk with them, to try and stem the tears. I only became annoyed when infants cried in theatres or in places they didn’t belong, or when they threw tantrums if their parents said “no”. In both cases, I actually blamed the parents and not the child. I concluded that the mothers and babies in the classroom were simply struggling to learn the new skills necessary for survival, and judging by the cries, some lessons were very difficult. Two more women arrived with dark green and grey strollers, and left them scattered about the hallway, as they rushed into the class that was already in session. As a passing nurse carefully parked and arranged the strollers in a neat, single-file line, I thought back on some of the challenges Kathy and I faced with breastfeeding, so many years ago, and how I came to this place today.

 Prisa and Sarah were barely one week out of the hospital, and Joe was going back to work today. I was simply helping them with a ride to a nursing class and some general housekeeping chores at home. Of course my hidden agenda was to watch, hold, and carry Sarah as much as possible. I was finding it hard to get enough of this nena chula, who had come into our lives. Unfortunately, when I expressed some curiosity about breastfeeding, and the possibility of writing a story about the class, Prisa banned me from the room and told me not to take pictures. If I were to write a story, I realized, it would be dependent on peripheral observations, and memories of my past, because I was never going to see what was going on in that classroom.

 It was only after Sarah’s birth that I realized how breastfeeding had become an even bigger deal in today’s modern concept of mothering, than when Kathy and I were parents. I was always a little obtuse about breastfeeding. You see I was born into a time when breastfeeding was rare, impractical, and socially undesirable. Of course I’m talking about the 1950’s. This was the post-war period of large, multiple children families, with stay-at-home mothers who managed all household duties on their own. Cloth diapers, glass bottles, sterilizing pots, and commercial nutritional formulas were the accepted method of feeding babies. I rarely saw women breastfeeding during my youth in Los Angeles, and when I did it was during our visits to Mexico, where tap water was suspect and commercial formulas were too expensive for the majority of people. Even there, however, my mother would frown if the breastfeeding were too public. I inferred from her reactions, therefore, that breastfeeding was a practice relegated to the poor and under-educated strata of society, while the affluent and middle-classes enjoyed the benefits of modern science and nutrition. When our youngest brother Alex was born in 1966, that’s all I ever saw and remembered – bottles and formula.

In college, I vaguely noticed that the practice of breastfeeding was making a comeback in the late 60’s through the synergistic efforts of hippie girls and mature, pro-breastfeeding women.  Many young women in the counter-culture and youth movements began adopting natural childbirth and breastfeeding as the cool and hip methods of mothering. This new, youthful attitude, melded perfectly with the dogmatic practitioners, evangelists, and disseminators of pro-breastfeeding doctrine – the La Leche League (Leche means milk in Spanish). The La Leche League was a non-profit organization, founded in Illinois in 1956, by seven middle-class women. They sought to educate and promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as the primary factor in the healthy development of a baby and mother, and breast milk as the superior infant food. By the time Kathy and I had our babies, the medical and nutritionist juries were still divided on the breast vs. bottle debate. I always thought that the La Leche literature made the breastfeeding process sound much easier than it actually was. Certainly, the technical aspects of nursing were simple: mother’s breast + baby’s mouth. But everything else was complex! There were a myriad of physiological and emotional questions and issues about breastfeeding, and few definitive answers: Was the flow and the volume of milk sufficient? Was the infant sucking correctly? Was the baby getting enough nutrition? Were the mother and child bonding? How, and what, was the father doing? Was the mother getting enough sleep? I discovered that there was nothing simple about the first weeks of breastfeeding. It was a process that called for hour-by-hour practice, observation, calculation, questions, and worries. Added to this was the fact that EVERYONE seemed to have an opinion about how and why it should, or shouldn’t be done! The only person I really trusted on the subject was Mary, Kathy’s mom. She mixed sound, technical assistance, with reasonable advice. For Mary, every child and every feeding practice was different and open to variations. You did not force one form of nursing on a mother and a baby who did not thrive on it. Mother and child needed to be in harmony with bonding, nourishment, and care. More importantly, Mary was looking out for the best interest of her daughter, Kathy, and her new grandchildren. In her equation, if the mother was physically and emotionally fine, so was the baby – the choice of nursing had to fit that equation. Ultimately, Kathy made the final decisions as to how to nurse Toñito and then Prisa, and I supported her 100%.

Over time, we worked out an accommodation of both practices and philosophies, whereby Kathy breastfed for a time, and then worked-in a supplemental bottle, before transitioning to full time formula. I was an enthusiastic supporter of an early supplemental bottle. Even when waking up to feed Toñito or Prisa in the middle of the night, the practice gave me access to that wondrous experience of physically bonding with an infant – even through a bottle. Holding and feeding an infant in your arms, a baby who was completely and utterly dependant on you for sustenance, was a center-of-the-universe moment. To be fully responsible for the care and nourishment of such a tiny, helpless being was incredibly humbling and euphoric. Selfishly, I was hoping that Prisa and Joe would work out a system like that as well. It would give the mother a break from the constant nursing cycle, and give the father and grandparents, a chance to bond with the infant. I saw it as a win-win-win scenario and started looking around the lobby where I was sitting.

 I hadn’t noticed, at first, how the chairs in the surrounding waiting area had been slowly filling up with people. The lettering on the far wall read, Larry and Dorothy Delpit Cardiac Rehabilitation Center. Couples, or pairs of elderly men and women, had been arriving, and then parting, with one person entering the rehabilitation center, and the other sitting in a chair outside. But now the room was suddenly filling up with more and more aged, and slow moving men and women, who seemed to know each other. Soon a chatty nurse with a clipboard came out of the door and began distributing portable monitoring devices to them, and inspecting their correct attachment. The noise level in the room rose higher and higher, as names, questions, and conversations rebounded against the walls. Just when I feared they would run out of chairs, and begin sitting closer and closer to me, the nurse led the group of 12 into the center. Silence again reigned in the suddenly vacated waiting area and lobby, where only I and two other women sat. I deduced that I had witnessed the assembling and entrance of an exercise group undergoing cardiac rehabilitation. I expected the members of the group to be gone for about 20 minutes, so I was surprised when a portly woman in sweats came out after only about 5.
“Whew,” she huffed, collapsing into a chair. “I can’t take any more of that machine, today. That was hard work. I need a break!” She started up a conversation about her upcoming Thanksgiving dinner with one of the visitors, whom she appeared to know, and was soon joined by another woman from the cardiac group.
“How was it in there for you today, Jane?” the woman in sweats asked.
“The treadmill was tough,” the latest casualty replied. “I’m calling it a day, once I catch my breath.”
Just then a blonde woman with a child on her shoulder exited the breastfeeding class, and began patting the baby’s back as she walked. The conversation among the women outside the rehabilitation center stopped, and all eyes followed the mother and infant as they bounced gingerly down the hallway corridor. The baby had light blonde hair and blue eyes, and the way she kept her head erect, she must have been one or two months old.
“What a cute baby!” the treadmill lady exclaimed. “I love them when they are so small. All they do is eat and sleep. I wish life could stay that simple. I wonder what they are doing here?” They resumed their conversation until the mother and baby returned, and the portly lady in sweats spoke to them.
“How old is the baby?” she asked loudly, getting the mother’s attention.
“She is 6 weeks old,” the mother replied, smiling proudly and turning, so that all the women could see her baby.
“She is beautiful,” the treadmill lady added.
“Thank you,” the mother said, continuing on her way to the classroom door and entering.
The women resumed their conversation outside the rehab center, as more and more members finished their session and joined them, complaining about the strenuous workout. I was struck by the odd juxtaposition of those two classes. A cardiac rehabilitation session of aging men and women, and a breastfeeding class of new mothers and infants, were side by side, on the same hallway, and at the same moment in time. It was as if two groups of people from the farthest ends of life’s continuum had looped around and touched, while still moving in opposite directions. I was struck by the notion that life never gets easier at any point in that spectrum; it always requires effort, hard work, and tears at every stage. The cardiac patients were struggling with failing organs and bodies, and trying to recover, while mothers and babies struggled with the first weeks of life in finding a rhythm of growth and nourishment. I felt that the infants and mothers faced the harder task, and needed the most support. I looked away from the cardiac patients and kept my eyes pealed toward the classroom door. I hoped to be greeted soon by my daughter’s glowing face, and the awakening sunrise of my granddaughter’s spontaneous smile.