Of course my mother hates this about me but it is in fact my nature to always … how should I put this? Sober up. I am the person who never lets a good thing go on too long. We’ve been enjoying an amazingly happy stretch with baby Jo recently, he’s ninety percent smiles and ten percent poop these days and it has been just brilliant being with him, but for me as happy as I’ve been, still something had to give. So it did.

My babe has started to teethe. If you can believe it my three and a half month old is teething. No sprouted pearly whites yet but his gums are clearly bugging my little critter because Jonah is all fists and drool. He spends all day shoving his tiny fists all up in there and just drools like it’s going out of style. His appetite has tanked too. Poor little monster. I was rubbing his gums today with my fingers and he was having (how wrong is this image) for lack of a better phrase, he was having a baby orgasm. I know he isn’t technically hurting but just this tiny amount of frustration that he is experiencing is giving me the twangs. You know the twangs, right? Like when you love something so much it hurts. The “hurt” is the twang you get inside. My twangs leave me a little bit cold after. I watch him struggle with his newly sprung issue and there isn’t much I can do to help. He hasn’t learned to hold anything up to his mouth so teething rings, frozen clothes and such are all a little bit beyond him. Anyway, this isn’t exactly my point about having something good and then finding something to knock myself off the high. What really got me, and so unexpectedly was a moment I had with my son a few nights ago alone in the tub.

He was having a baby orgasm.

Jonah and I were tubbin`it as per usual. He was fascinated with splashing and I was singing him some Beatles tune when he suddenly stopped splashing and his little fists jetted up to his mouth again where he began to suck and chew furiously. So I quickly chewed my nail down to the quick, washed my hands and poked my finger into his mouth to supply some relief. Jonah grabbed my hand with his two and just went to town on it and for a split second I thought “Good, this is helping.” But then I got the glacial twang. This was the first time in a long time that I had felt his desperate need for something only I could offer. The same way he needed me in those first few weeks of breastfeeding. I suddenly lost my feeling of contentment and remembered my sadness over not being able to breastfeed my baby. The one thing I should have been able to do, no problem. In the beginning Jo was always with me, what felt like always just on my chest feeding away. All that skin to skin contact obviously was something I sorely missed. And, I’m sorry to say to those of you who might be thinking that my baby and I still have this kind of contact through baths or whatever else. There is nothing like the feeling of holding a baby next to your heart and feeding them off your own breast … with your own milk … those moments of still and beautiful quiet … the calm … the action of nursing, the sensation, all of it. I lost it all and sitting in the tub with Jonah, my finger in his mouth where he just sucked and sucked … well, it just broke my heart. All over again. The feelings I had to deal with weeks ago when we quit breastfeeding came barrelling back and overwhelmed me. I was not prepared. In fact as I write this I am choked up once again. I want to breastfeed so badly and I am angry that I can’t. I feel cheated.

I know Jo will never really know whether he was breastfed or not but I’m beginning to feel the build up of things I missed out on and I truly believe it has a lot to do with my c-section. I know that choice was mine and really, I should be thankful for my quick recovery and I should revel in the knowledge that c-sections have positives but I can’t seem to shake the negatives. I wasn’t able to see my baby come out of me the way I should have. I didn’t get to see my son being held by his father for the first time. I never got to see the look on my dad’s face when finally Jonah met him. I didn’t get to hear what was said or see the emotions run through them and over their faces. Those split second moments that are so huge I completely missed out on because of my surgery. And, I guess maybe this is the journey of realising and accepting that, but I am just at stage “angry” right now. My body had zero chance to go through the natural progression of labour. I didn’t get the right hormones at the necessary times and so no wonder my breasts were like “WTF?” and just gave up. I missed having Jonah on my chest immediately after birth and now I don’t get the option of breastfeeding where so much of our bonding is supposed to take place? My god, does this sound unfair to anyone else out there? Just me?

Sigh. Look. I can hear my mom in my head telling me to can it. That I shouldn’t be so negative and to think about my perfect son and how lucky I am he’s an angel from heaven … but you know what? Sometimes this is just where my head is at. I should have been in that room with my son watching him being passed around. From J to my mother, to my father and to my best friend. That is something I am owed. I’m sure after a good night’s sleep I won’t feel this emotion like an acid tearing through me but for now I do. For now I want retribution. For now I want someone to sympathize. In the end I suppose I shouldn’t be so quick to say everything is perfect because obviously these twangs still run very close to the surface and every so often will turn from icy to a burn.