Nursing, I discovered, is its own kind of lullaby, a private mother-and-baby song. But the thought that forgoing it would be any kind of loss was as foreign to me in adolescence as it is obvious to me now. I offer this personal story as a reminder of how imperfect our knowledge of our future desires is, how cavalier adolescents often are with risks they are in no position to assess, especially when faced with the encouragement of friends.
