The First Time I Ever Saw Your [Pale Yellow] Face

A Desperate Affair Ensued

The first time I ever saw your pale yellow face was after a 72 hour ordeal that resulted in the arrival of my first born at 29 weeks and two days after every effort to keep her in utero. This involved a lot of intense medication, a catheter, a surrender of complete control, prayers, and enough adrenaline to power the hospital. 

My husband and I had recently settled into our recovery room. We hadn’t yet seen our daughter since she was taken to the NICU. The bubbly young nurse wheeled you in on your hip-height mannequin stand. 

“Now it’s time to pump!” she announced as she cut two holes in a post-op cardiac chest compression vest with surgical scissors.  “This is the Medela Symphony.” 

I stared at the two of you blankly. “I have to do what?” I was not prepared for what would become one of the most tumultuous relationships of my life. The nurse handed over my make-shift pumping bra, a set of tubing, pump parts, a bottle of Dawn dish soap, and the ubiquitous gray hospital bins to wash and store parts. 

Medela Symphony. As if your baby donkey wheezing sounds were comparable to Beethoven’s Fifth. 

You were the yellow of a spring daffodil - one of the soft, frilly ones. Cheerful, yet understated. Your Disney-princess-dress yellow disguised your true nature - Rumpelstiltskin - forever demanding your gold. 

You had two bells under your lid, like the bells of an old-fashioned telephone, to affix suction cups made out of the strangest, smoothest, yet flimsiest rubbery substance. Not one shred of lint was to ever touch that rubbery surface for fear of shutting you down. 

“Don’t get any water in my tubes,” you’d say. You were designed to extract liquid, wtf? Water did get in your tubes, it was inevitable. I would whip them around like an 80s hair band to get it out. Such lengths I went to for you. 

Your flanges of molded plastic that stuck out straight out, Madonna-style, which seemed to defy gravity and physics. Why they weren’t angled down to help with flowing milk, I will never know. After pumping I would lean forward, remove the flanges while still attached to the bottles to collect every drop, and then hand express just for good measure. Such lengths I went to for you. 

Your bottle holder didn’t really seem to fit anywhere, with two bottles that were not shaped like any other standard bottle. You had to be different. You also only offered up two of these bottles. I had to pump every two hours in the beginning. There are 24 hours in the day.  I’m no Fields Medal winner, but I'm pretty sure two bottles doesn’t cut it. 

Ours was a twisted, controlling relationship. I can’t describe it as co-dependent because I was completely dependent on you. You, on the other hand, could be wheeled around to any other lactater in the hospital. I tried everything to prove my supply worthy. I took Fenugreek around the clock. I power-pumped. I drank the tea. I drank over a gallon of water a day. I ate bars with brewer’s yeast. I paid someone else to make me “granola” I could have made myself, but I hoped just maybe it would have some fairy dust or something that would do the trick.  I pumped and pumped and pumped.  I pleaded, I sobbed, I prostrated myself at your grippy little feet to no avail. Such lengths I went to for you.

Like any fraught relationship, I eventually was glad to see you go after 11 months. I wasn’t planning to take you back, but I thought you’d be better the second time around, so I did. The third time I drew the line. I wasn’t going back to you and I didn’t. 

They say our failed relationships make us stronger, and through them we really find out who we are and what matters. Rainbows after the storm and all that. That’s true for me and you, so in the words of Ariana Grande, “thank u, next.” 

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I avoided getting into bed with Medela Symphony when my third baby came around by creating an easy journaling process for myself to find some calm, practice gratitude, and help get the milk flowing. I suspected Medela has broken other hearts so I published that journal. It’s available for pre-sale here: https://www.emilylkendall.com/books