Hand Expressing in the Hallway Bathroom at Oncology

I had about a couple of hours to pack and get to the airport after booking my flight to Cincinnati. My dad was in the ER after suffering a seizure at home while also battling recently discovered cancer. The cancer had metastasized and was in his brain. I tossed a single change of clothes into a bag and the panic welled into the back of my throat. My son was 18 months old and I had never spent a night away from him—not even a full day. I didn't have any breastmilk pumped because we were always together he was home with me full time while I worked in the minutes in between it all. I tossed the hand pump the hospital had given me into my bag. I had never used it before, but wasn't about to pack my Spectra for fear it might get confiscated (do they still?). I breastfeed my son in the house before we left for the airport, and again 15 minutes later in the car when we pulled up to the drop-off spot. My anxiety was all-consuming. This might be the last time you see him. Anything could happen. Visions of plane accidents or any accident for that matter flashed across my eyes as I gave him a huge kiss. My husband assured me they would be ok before I rushed through the doors and into the airport.

While boarding the plane, another woman and her partner had their young son with them. "18 months?" I asked and the woman excitedly confirmed. I told her my son was the same age and it was my first time away from him. “Enjoy it mama!!" she answered. Knowing how rare it is—for mamas especially—to get away from the all-consuming job of parenting. But all I wanted was to be home with him and for my dad to be back to his pre-cancer self. For COVID to not be happening so I could have seen him more in the past year. And it was hard to imagine a situation where I was boarding a plane for a mini holiday away from my son. My brain couldn't compute.

After landing at the CVG airport, I went straight to the hospital where my sister and stepmom were with my dad. They had moved him from the ER to Oncology. There he lay—a sliver of the man I knew—frail and heavily drugged. My sister and I made the decision that we'd stay by his bedside that night and take turns being awake. The hours blurred and I hadn't realized how long I had gone without pumping when my breasts started to feel like they were being stung by a hundred sharp needles. I grabbed my hand pump and rushed to the hallway bathroom. Shirt and bra off, I pieced together the breast pump and attached it to my swollen breast. No milk came through but my nipple stung from the suction. I tried again and still no milk. I chucked the hand pump into the trash and got back to work—hand expressing. The milk came in wild spurts. Milk will squirt in every direction way when you hand express—especially when your breasts are full to the brim. Squirts of milky evidence were all over the sink, mirror, and wall. It took forever to fully relieve the pressure and by the end my hands were tired and my breasts sore. I slipped my bra and shirt back on and started to clean up the breastmilk battlefield before heading back down the hall to my dying father’s bedside.

"Hand Expressing in the Hallway Bathroom at Oncology", 2022, graphite on Bristol, 17 x 14 inches.

Last Milkies

It’s been more than three months since my son weaned himself off breastfeeding, “milkies” as we call it. He had been gradually losing interest, which was surprising to me as milkies were his favorite thing since his first hours out of the womb. But over the summer, he stopped asking for it at the usual times. I’d either offer it and he’d squeal as if he was being given a surprise present. Or I wouldn’t mention it and he’d remember hours later, ravenous as if he was coming out of a fast. He’d scramble towards me, legs and arms in all directions—“MILKIES!!!”

Breastfeeding (or pumping—either way, your body is WORKING!) is a roller coaster ride. Ups and downs, swings and standstills, depletion and overflowing, battle and rest, comfort and discomfort, easy and frustrating. My breastfeeding journey with my son was all of the above. But despite my frequent complaints, I needed it just as much as he did. In the very early days, during my recovery from a cesarean, I was able to provide for him from my comfy perch in my bed. The snow was falling outside in the December cold, but we were snuggled up, skin-to-skin, and cozy. He was getting all the nourishment he needed while my body was healing. This time in our little bubble helped us build an incredible bond. Inevitably, he built a routine of wanting milkies around the clock. It could be draining, but those feeding sessions also meant that I could sit still and maybe even close my eyes for a mini rest. Something any parent can be grateful for.

Because my son wanted to eat constantly, the demand triggered prolactin which sent the message to my body to produce more and more milk. Prolactin also triggers oxytocin, which is often referred to as the “love hormone.” So while I was producing prolactin and breastmilk non-stop, my oxytocin levels were sky-high. Looking back on this time, I’m grateful for that because my postpartum anxiety was quietly raging inside. The increased oxytocin helped me be present in those scrumptious, lovey milkies moments instead of giving into the panic sessions of visualizing imaginary freak accidents. Milkies became a cacoon of sorts—isolation, security, and comfort. And with his first year in 2020 during a global pandemic, he and I didn’t wander far out of our cacoon…even when tempted.

We continued breastfeeding into his second year, past the 12-month mark I had assumed would be when we’d wean. I couldn’t even imagine giving up that bond when his birthday rolled around. It made me feel uneasy just to think about it. But then my dad was diagnosed with cancer. His life expectancy was 3-5 years. And then it wasn’t. It became any week, any month, who knows. Up to that point, I had never spent a night away from my son. But there I was booking a flight to Cincinnati that would depart two hours later. I didn’t have the time to pump. My husband reminded me our son would be ok. He’d been heavily on solids for over a year. He certainly wouldn’t go hungry. And he didn’t! But I was an anxious mess with painfully engorged boobs who spent 48 hours by her dad’s hospital bed thinking he might not live to say goodbye. While also panicking about being away from my son for the first time. And taking breaks when I couldn’t take the physical pain anymore to hand express in the bathroom down the hall (my hand pump broke the first time I used it on the whirlwind trip).

While prolactin increases oxytocin, it inhibits ovulation. So a person’s hormone swings of estrogen and progesterone aren’t as extreme or intense as they are regularly. My cycle came back when my son turned 13 months old (a whole year of period-free bliss!). And then the breastfeeding started to wean so the prolactin levels began to decrease. My typical hormone swings started to creep back in monthly. If you plan for your wean, you can ease the shift in your body and emotions with diet, exercise, vitamins, etc. But I was distracted at this time in our lives. I was also in denial that we were weaning at all. I flew out to Cincinnati one more time and a week later, my dad was dead.

The weeks after my dad died, I really needed the comfort and security of our milkies cacoon. But my son did not. He was too full of energy to sit still for breastfeeding. And I wasn’t producing enough milk to make it easy for him, so he would grow impatient. My boobs were deflated and hanging from my chest. And I was grieving. My oxytocin levels were low and my energy was low. One day I woke up and just knew, this was the end of our journey. I offered him milkies and we snuggled up close. I stroked his hair as he looked up and kept eye contact with me, as he used to when he was a baby. After about five minutes he unlatched, smiled at me, and scooted off to play with a toy. And that was our last milkies.

In Stitches

My son's second birthday was a couple of weeks ago and I found myself thinking a lot about our birthing experience. Both the joyful and the painful and scary moments. He was born with an emergency cesarean section after 20+ hours of intense labor (a story for another time). And while that can be upsetting for me to dwell on, the experience of giving birth to my son has truly shaped my identity now. I don't want to forget what made me who I am today.

Most of the details of my labor are blurred to me. It's hard to stay lucid when you’re in deep pain or under anesthesia. But the hours and days after his birth are still quite clear. My cesarean scar brings a lot of those memories back for me every time I look at it or touch it. And for that, I'm somewhat grateful for its visibility.

The first time I actually looked at my cesarean incision was over 24 hours after my surgery. One of my nurses had helped me shuffle slowly to the shower so I could gently wash the sensitive area and my body. This was also the first time I had actually looked at myself in the mirror in days. That morning, our pediatrician —who had an incredibly calming presence — had told me I looked very well. I tried to take his word for it but really had no idea how I looked. At that point, I was still in a hospital gown and I had barely gotten out of the bed. I had also lost my glasses in all the commotion and could barely see anyone besides the dewy newborn that was barnacled to my breast.

After our labored journey to the bathroom, the nurse left to give me privacy. It was the first time I had been alone in a room in days. I looked in the mirror and the person that looked back at me was unrecognizable. Lines had appeared seemingly overnight, my hair had knotted into a bird’s dream nest come true, and acne had sprouted amidst the sweat and tears of labor. What of it, I thought and proceeded to slowly disrobe out of my sticky hospital gown and gingerly lower my hospital mesh undies.

The warm water sprinkled down on my hunched back, curving protectively over my stomach and the pain. I had to hold away my ample stomach flesh to get a good look at the cesarean cut. "Oh, that's much smaller and lower than I thought it would be," I thought. What a pleasant surprise. It was sutured up well, with both stitches and staples and those little white strips of tape. Fresh blood was seeping through the cracks of dried blood that had formed on the cut. I sudsed up some soap on my fingertips and gently dapped along the curved line. I focused on this meticulous wound cleaning and my mind distanced... as if it wasn't my own stomach or that this was the result of intensive surgery. It just was and this was the shape it was in and I was cleaning it but I had to hurry and get dressed and get back to the hospital bed so that my baby could eat because it had already been much too long since I got to the bathroom and he probably needed me and wanted me and I was taking too long… and just like that, hello anxiety.

*This is my first time sharing longer-form writing for one of my Postpartum pieces, and doing so here on my website instead of on Instagram. It feels good to have it here where I can write more and not feel the vulnerability of social media peering over my shoulder.