Dear Breastfeeding Mom,

They always say you cherish every minute with your little one, because time slips through your fingers. But today, you’re just not engulfed with the usual flood of affection. You don’t even feel yourself now. If only you could rest for one more hour or relieve your mind of so much thinking, you’d do it in a heartbeat.

But you couldn’t, and despite everything you do for your home and your little one, you feel invisible.

Ease your mind, Mom. We see you.

You wake up counting the hours that you slept, if you ever did at all. You consume your coffee gone cold, and you’re now slowly getting used to how it tastes and feels. You look back at all those times you can sip a hot cup and leisurely eat. You long for the moments you can sit still on the dining table—unhurriedly, uninterruptedly.

Now, mornings are exceedingly hurried or definitively slow that you can’t proceed with the next task on your list. Most of the time, there’s just no in between, so you ask, “When can mornings be “normal” again?”

We see you leaving your work desk at home for a while to attend to your crying baby or to your toddler who asks you to play with him. We heard your sigh, because you want a calm and quiet half hour to finish your work, and even that sounds impossible to achieve.

You wish for you to be able to do two things at once so you can finish work without your mom guilt reaching sky high. But for now, you have no choice but to deal with the unpredictability of your daily schedule.

Mom, what do I wear?

What’s for lunch?

Where’s the shampoo?

We hear your voice answer each of these questions, but we also see your eyebrows crease of confusion, exhaustion, and back again… because why does all the load have to be on your shoulders?

We see beyond your faint smile as you say, “Here, sweetie.” Your tired eyes speak so much. You’re doing your best to be present despite the exhaustion, and that in itself takes a great deal of effort.

Everyone has gone to sleep, but you stay up for one more minute for yourself. You sneak out of the bed ever so quietly to tackle all unfinished work for the day – the toys on the floor, unfolded laundry, the half-done to-do list. You still clock in for these unpaid work, just so tomorrow’s a little bit lighter than today.

We see you clean the floor, enduring the back ache, all while your eyes check on your little one from time to time. You adore him from afar but you also sincerely hope he wouldn’t wake just yet, that he wouldn’t need you just yet, so you can spend more quiet time you so deserve.

You try to rest but he wakes, and just like that, your work begins again.

Through it all, you feel invisible.

But Mom, we see you. We see you as you are – tired, exhausted, yet pushing through and full of love. Not perfect, but the best person for this job.

The work that you do matters.

Most of all, you matter.

–

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