It’s the pictures you don’t take…..

“Do you want me to take pictures of you nursing?”

….sure? Why not?

My son was five weeks old and we were doing family pictures. Of course, that meant it was boob o’clock, right? Our photographer asked if I wanted pictures as I settled in.

He wasn’t wearing the diaper I meant for him to have on. I was sitting in a peach wing-backed chair that my mom has owned since I was a little girl. In fact, there is a picture of me sitting in that chair when I was four, holding my baby brother. It wasn’t exactly new.

In other words, this was not what I had planned.

But I said yes. And I will be forever grateful that I did. Those pictures are some of my favourite pictures of me with my youngest. In fact, they are some of my favourite pictures, period.

But they also make me sad.

I’m not sad because of my baby and I. The pictures are stunning. The love, peace, and serenity of the pictures is palpable.

I’m sad because I didn’t get pictures like that with my oldest.

My oldest was breastfed, but not exclusively. There were a lot of reasons for that. If I’m being honest, I probably would have been a much happier mother if I hadn’t fought so hard to breastfeed. You see, even though breastfeeding was near impossible, I pushed on because, “thats what good mothers do“. The shame and guilt I had over my inability to “properly” breastfeed clouded our entire breastfeeding relationship, even though I didn’t wean until he was over 18 months.

Pictures of us breastfeeding would not have been peaceful or serene. They would have been filled with anxiety, fear, shame, and guilt. They would not have been beautiful. They would have been pictures of pain.

I wish I had hired someone to take pictures of me bottle feeding my son.

Because feeding is, at its very core, a nurturing act. A beautiful, loving, selfless act. And it doesn’t matter if sustenance comes from a bottle or a breast.

I will always love and cherish the pictures I have of me breastfeeding my baby.

But I regret the pictures I didn’t take because I let someone else tell me what was beautiful.