Double Trouble

Here's a short excerpt from Suzanne's essay "Double Trouble," which will be published in Unbuttoned: Women Tell the Truth about the Pleasures and Politics of Breastfeeding. The Harvard Common Press anthology is scheduled for release in 2009.

Toby and Ian were born a month early, weighing about 5 pounds each, with less body fat than Nicole Richie pre-rehab and even less interest in sucking. When presented with my nipples, they were at a complete loss, as if someone had offered them fly-fishing rods. They’d fall asleep or cry or just flail about, but rarely would they suck. Without sufficient stimulation, I was producing no milk. The hospital outfitted me with an industrial-grade breast pump that looked like it could extract breast milk from my deceased grandmothers, and I dutifully cranked it every three hours, 24 hours a day. But still, no milk.

To help the boys along, the nurses hooked us up with a remedial nursing system, training wheels for the lactationally challenged. Clipped to each of my bra straps were small, formula-filled bottles with tiny hoses dangling from them. I’d tape the hoses to my breasts, then insert the ends into the corner of the boys’ mouths as they “nursed.” The idea was that the babies would think they were breastfeeding when, in fact, they were sucking formula through a straw. My boys did not seem to appreciate the leg up and would expend huge amounts of energy shrieking and yanking the tubes off my breasts.