Pumping

In my first months of motherhood, I pumped. 

I pumped, collecting little ounces of breastmilk in the freezer because I thought that was what I should do. It was a pandemic though, where was I to go while you stayed at home and fed from a bottle? Still, I beamed with pride at my multitude of baggies. I’d think to myself, what a responsible and hardworking mother I was, my baby was lucky.

Months later we learned you were allergic to dairy and soy and reacted to those substances in my milk. It took me 4 more months to admit that my white gold, the drops of my exhaustive labour, were garbage. And I threw each tiny frozen white bag straight out into the trash. No energy to thaw and compost the contents. So sad for past me, the young new mom who had worked so hard to drain her titties. All those cumulative hours of electric pulsing while I scrolled through pictures of Ellie because it made the milk come faster. Not eligible for donation, I was directed to an Etsy store where I could commission jewelry made from my milk. And I wondered, which of my weirdo friends was weird enough to want a necklace of my milk.