It’s World Breastfeeding Week.

In the past year, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between me and my baby, this creature I carried and birthed, but also about the relationship between me and my body and the way my baby laid claim to it during pregnancy and even now appropriates it as her own. A lot of that is centered around breastfeeding, which I have been doing since her birth a year ago now. It is such an intimate act that I cherish, but it is also an act that requires a great deal of emotional, mental, and physical energy on my part, and I often find myself wondering if it’s time to wean her. Perhaps more than anything else, breastfeeding signifies motherhood to me. There’s a constant paradoxical choice to put her needs ahead of mine, and yet need to tend to my own needs lest I not be able to tend to her’s, and always, always my body and my heart on the line. 

And so I present to you, a list of places where I have fed my child. 

In a hospital bed after giving birth, still stunned that my baby was here and I was a mother now.

In my own bed, with tears running down my cheeks while blood and milk mixed in my baby’s mouth as she clamped down on me with all her might.

In the office of a lactation specialist, where both of us learned this thing that people told me was so natural.

In my bed, still sleepy, as we woke up together at five am.

On the couch, making my way through Parks and Rec or The Good Fight or NCIS while Gracie suckled contently and then fell asleep.

During a family birthday dinner at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Idaho, a state that didn’t yet offer legal protection to nursing mothers and where I dared to feed her anyway.

During heat waves in our non-air-conditioned home, where we melted into a puddle of sticky sweat together.

In hotel rooms as soon as she squawked so we wouldn’t wake the neighbors.

In a church pew, rushed and hurried, so I wouldn’t hand the priest a hungry and unruly baby to be baptized.

In a church pew, many other times, as the rhythm of the service went on around me.

In museums and the aquarium, before, during, and after visits to the exhibits.

In restaurants and at the dinner table and on the couch while my food cooled and my coffee remained just out of reach.

In my car in parking lots and gas stations on road trips and between errands and appointments.

During classes and meetings and social gatherings, when she slurps more food from me than I have to spare, and I go into new-mom-meltdown-mode without realizing why, and have to go outside to breathe and cry.

On long flights where I nursed every hour to keep my baby happy. On long flights where I got stared at by a teenage boy who couldn’t look away, even when I stared back. On short flights where I had to fight the manspreader next to me for the space of my own seat and share that with her too.

At midnight and one am and two am and three, and all the other hours of the night.

In her room, hours after she’s bit me hard enough to draw blood, and yet I offer her my body, again.

Two hours after I became Dr. Tielens, after she slept in my arms during my celebratory reception and I thought about how I’d birthed two babies in the last year, only one of which truly mattered.

In a discrete downstairs corner of a coffee place, with a blanket covering us both, where I got stared and glared at by an elderly gentleman anyway.

Between sessions at academic conferences and during lunch breaks of all day meetings, where I practice embracing my new identity as mother and more.

On cushy sofas and hard chairs and the ground, and standing when I couldn’t sit.

On the couch, while thinking through a tricky piece of the dissertation and typing notes into my phone so I wouldn’t forget my argument before I could get back to it.

At a roller derby match, hunched over on a hard bleacher seat while we watch strong and fierce women do battle on the track.

At a baseball game, while the sun beats down on our heads and the players swing and miss on the field below us.

On Sundays during coffee hour after the children’s service, as little girls gather around me and watch my daughter eat, and I tell them many of them once ate this way and they might one day do this for their own babies, too.

On a beach, sitting in the sand as I watch the waves go in and out and she throws up an arm to block the sun from her eyes.

With a body rigid with tension because I didn’t want anyone touching me, not even her.

And with a body relaxed and open, because what else was my body made for than to give her life?