Sami and I had such a busy day today! This morning we went to a La Leche League meeting. I remember attending a couple of these meetings while I was still pregnant, and it all seemed so strange and abstract. I was certain that breastfeeding would be so easy for me. All I had to do was give birth! I remember being in awe of how beautiful the babies were, how easygoing and happy their mothers seemed — all surface impressions, projections, obviously. I remember thinking that this was a club I was on the verge of joining and felt a potent mixture of fear and anticipation about that.

This time, I ended up staying after the meeting and talking for a long time with Jane and some of the other mothers about some of the issues we’ve been having. It turns out more of the LLL mamas than I thought had also had initial difficulties. I felt comforted that they had made it through, and perhaps I could, too. Mamas are such nurturing people. I can hardly believe that I am one.

Then we went out for lunch with auntie Shira at the Parkway Deli, and Sami slept the whole time like a little trooper. Thanks, Sami! The car ride puts him out like you wouldn’t believe.

Shira and I talked a lot about what it has been like for me so far being a motherless mother. We both lost our mothers — hers last year, and mine 10 years ago. Like the mother club, there’s also the motherless daughters club. We share a special bond through our gains and our losses. Reminds me of the 8 vicissitudes of life the Buddha talked about: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and ill repute. Life is full of these. Which do we accept, and which do we reject?

When we got home, I called the number of one of the cranio-sacral therapists my lactation consultant gave me. She happened to be able to see Sami today before going out of town for a week, so I jumped on it. Cranio-sacral therapy is a very gentle form of bodywork–most of the time she cradled his head and sacrum in her hands. Sami was so awake and alert the whole time–she said she had never seen such cooperative infant. She told me that she can observe through his movements where he is holding tension in his body from the birth, etc.

I am not sure how much it helped him — his suck feels a little better, but then again she said it can take a few days for the treatment to work through his little body–but it also felt like a therapy session for me! I really liked this CST– she was an older woman, maybe in her late 50s, and had such a loving, gentle energy. Sami loved her too — he only cried when it was time for us to leave! I had put him in his car seat and he was crying so hard. “Sami,” she asked, “Do you want to nurse?” and he went completely silent. We took that as a yes. She taught me a lot about communicating more with Sami — always telling him what I am about to do, etc. I have been doing that and really enjoying it.

Turns out she is also from a Buddhist orientation–and we talked about my (very high) expectations for breastfeeding. “Every time you get attatched to outcomes, you’re setting yourself up for the opposite to happen,” she said gently. I knew she was right. We talked a lot about my fear and anxiety and how that can affect the baby. We also talked about how my mother had so wanted to breastfeed me but wasn’t able to for very long, due to our frequent separations within a short time of my birth. “So you’re trying to do what your mother couldn’t do,” she noticed. “That’s a lot of pressure!” I said, realizing that out loud for the first time. I cried a little bit during the session, because I realized how much I wanted this whole breastfeeding thing to go well, and it wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped, and I was having such a hard time applying my mindfulness training to the situation. Of course — it isn’t the situation — it’s what you bring to it. How easy it is to forget! I felt a flood of compassion for myself and Sami. We both have been trying so hard, and whatever happens, it will be OK.

“It’s like this,” said the Buddhist master Ajahn Chah. I need to make that my mantra.