At no point in the two hour class on breastfeeding did the instructor ever mention the word “cluster-feeding.” She never mentioned that on the second night of my son’s life, he would feed all night long. And then again a few nights later. Some nights I would catch a break from 2:30 am to 4:00 am, but this barely helped: waking up at 4:00 am after an hour and a half of sleep felt like torture. The exhaustion was torture. I was being tortured by my newborn, and I was not alright.
“I will make most severe your pangs in childbearing; In pain shall you bear children.” This is the curse of Eve, in Genesis 3., which we read about in this week’s Torah reading. The primordial couple, lured by the wily snake, had eaten the fruit that God forbade to them. Pain in childbirth, the Torah records, is the first part of Eve’s punishment.
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