This is, “The Stories We Tell,” a weekly series of true accounts in all things motherhood. These 100% vulnerable, raw and ferociously honest tales are from the LA-based storytelling event, Mothers Unleashed, but this week, we’re again highlighting a story that hasn’t been shared before. This is Mothers Unleashed alum Anastasiya’s story about her breastfeeding journey - something that, like all things motherhood, it’s not as simple as it seems.

My feelings on breastfeeding are in constant contradiction. I never thought I would love nursing my baby so much… I also never thought I would have such a hard time with it.

When mothers told me that they nursed their infants for a year or more, I breezed through that revelation. I saw the future; I too would be one of these Breastfeeding Earth Mamas – juggling work and baby and milking like a French woman who still manages to put on her red lipstick.

I now realize that the world should give these women medals. Breastfeeding and pumping entails so much more than I could have imagined. My goal was to last at least a year, but really that’s two years of your baby being dependent on your body, if we start from when they are little peanuts in the belly. I am lucky that breastfeeding has been a choice… a choice that I make every single day.

Baby and I had a rough start. I not so jokingly say that labor was less painful than that first month of nursing.

The first night at the hospital, I valiantly try to listen as a young lactation consultant massages my boob and shows me how to tweak my flat nipple and then shove it into our tiny baby’s mouth. Is she speaking Greek? I feel like I am studying for the hardest test I’ve ever taken, and despite my bleary-eyed, very good intentions, I am terrified I am doing it wrong.

Due to an unwanted c-section resulting in a longer hospital stay, I am blessed with three nights of lactation nurse visits - ghosts of flat nipples past, and spirits of future latching.

Whether I am ready or not, we head home. At this point though, my nipples are torn to shreds, bleeding, aching, burning and I still have no idea whether my child was eating. Every cry from the bassinet makes me groan with the anticipation of the pain.

But at some point, the pain dulls and the baby starts getting the hang of it all, and he pulls my nipples out to their new place in the world.

My best friend comes to visit, and she gives me the confidence to nurse in public for the first time. Not quite out in the open just yet, but we are out at an art museum. I feel like I am cheating because I sit in one of those video installations where the room is completely dark. I’m nervous when a young man sits next to me on the bench but he offers me a smile when he realizes that those strange noises are from a tiny slurping baby. The youth really are the future. I am relieved and charmed and really freaking proud of myself.

The next big shift comes when I go back to work. The first time I take out my pump and put up my bamboo screen, I realize how being chained to a desk twice daily is going to be a challenge - I now have to schedule my whole day around pumping. I wonder how in the world so many women get through this.

Hello breastpump (darkness) my old friend – that song pops into my head every single time. I force myself to remember that I should be grateful for this privilege. My pump is the instrument that allows me to “have it all.” But I struggle lugging it and all the supplies back and forth. I take a tumble outside of my office, which happens to be in front of a busy street during rush hour traffic. The commuters look on while I try to put all those plastic bits back in my bag. My foot is throbbing, but all I can think is… Ugh I have to wash everything again.

I forget some of the bits one day, and my boobs get so hard and so painful that I wonder if this is the moment that they just fall off... so I spend the money on extra parts. I purchase another pump so I can leave one at work. I remind myself to be grateful that I can just buy an extra pump unlike so many other working mothers in the world. I am now able to pump at any given moment. One day, I come home to find that our dog chewed up all of my attachments - more money and more bits. Endless washing and drying and sanitizing - but my husband helps, and again, I force myself to remember that I am very lucky.

A month after going back to work, my baby decides to reject my nipple and go on a nursing strike. My baby cries and screams, he twists away from me and looks at me in horror when I try to give him the breast. I feel all of the guilt of being a working mom in a rush of failure. My husband can’t understand why I am so emotional.

I spend a lot of time Googling, crying, and then using straight up trickery, then crying some more. I calm him down by giving him a pacifier and then slyly slipping him the boob. I become a pro at nursing standing up while bouncing. I hold him in the warm bathtub skin to skin – thinking meditative thoughts at him – beaming him the energy of good intentions. I have slathered an entire jar of balm on my very well moisturized nipples.

I am determined - my mother breastfed me for a year and a half, and this was in the Soviet Union without breast pumps and fancy organic nipple creams, and no prospect of formula.

I am not against formula, but stopping breastfeeding would have been the first signs of my baby breaking that intimate connection between us. I took it as a personal affront after all that I had done to make sure this breastfeeding thing was successful. Maybe it’s pathological, or maybe it’s my penance for leaving him in daycare.

Then again, switching to pumping exclusively would have been easier… maybe… I’ve heard it said it’s all the work without the snuggles and twice the dishes.

I finally realize that although I hate pumping, I love nursing. I’m fighting so hard because I want to win back this privilege.

All of a sudden, one day, he is back to nursing like the strike never happened. We settle into a beautiful rhythm.

I think about how much I am going to miss all of this. I still get annoyed that he uses my boobs as an all you can eat buffet with lots of pauses and starts - he gets distracted and takes breaks, then falls asleep. When I nurse him in public, he gives me mixed signals. I pull the boob out, put it back in, pull it out again… make up your mind baby, it’s not that easy to juggle covers and strangers and clothing! But then the sweet way that he looks at me while nursing is overwhelming and it’s all worth it.

Now, I’ve been breastfeeding for eight months - where’s my medal?!

Of course, we’ve slowly started introducing solid foods, and now he needs me less and less. When daycare tells me that they only need one bottle of breastmilk today, I get a little sad. I’m glad we’re taking it slow, because I’m not totally ready. Maybe babies nurse for as long as they do as nature’s sweet way of breaking up with mom... slowly.