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Writing this entry, I am sitting in a local coffeehouse next to a young couple with a little baby, about two months old.  The baby has elegant long fingers and the tiniest little feet.  

The mother is still tentative about coordinating everything to nurse in public, but she is confident and quietly determined.  After she got everything going, the dad fed her a little bite of cookie as she nursed.  In spite of the newness of it all, they still make it look so easy.  

A tiny pang of something niggled inside my stomach somewhere.  With twins, it never felt that easy to coordinate breastfeeding, especially in public.  Heck, it was often hard to coordinate it at home.

When I was pregnant and reading lots, I would often see photos of moms nursing multiples at the same time, making it look effortless.  Every time I tried to do this, my kids freaked out.  Dinah freaked out a few minutes into every nursing session even if I was nursing her on her own, and the post-natal doula that friends hired for me couldn't figure out why.

But, I still nursed as much as I could, and we used formula too.

I went back to work when my girls were about five months old, and my husband quit his day job and became a full-time stay-at-home dad.  I have fond memories of night nursing during this period.  It was so hard to be away during the day, and even though I was exhausted, night nursing offered a chance to reconnect.

At about 14 months, Dinah and Djuna seemed to lose interest in night nursing, and we eventually tapered off completely.

I have a friend who faithfully pumped for years.  For nutritional purposes, I do sometimes wish I had continued pumping after I stopped nursing.  There is no man-made substitute for breastmilk.  But, once the physical connection was gone, I found it difficult to keep it up.  I had cherished the night nursing.

Looking back, I'm so grateful for every day (and night) that I breastfed my girls.