It's official: I, Stephanie Milligan, Milk Maker Extraordinaire, Wet Nurse In Another Life, The Boss Lady's Boob, am done breastfeeding! I have so many emotions about this new development and they run the gamut from total excitement and a feeling of insane freedom to sadness and fear that my child is officially done with my body.
It's been a little more than 2 weeks since Olivia last nursed (Wednesday night, October 26 to be exact) and now that I no longer feel like I have rocks in my boobs, I feel like I can write about this a little more rationally.
I have been ready to be done with breastfeeding for a little while now and I started to sense that Olivia was done as well. I didn't plan out our final nursing session or really even think about it much. Mike and I had plans to go out of town on the 28th for our anniversary and I was kind of hoping that me being gone for 2 nights would help ease us into the transition but I wasn't entirely sure how it would all go down.
A couple of months ago, we already transitioned to a morning and night nursing session and then several weeks ago, it became night only. I began to realize that Olivia didn't even ask for her morning session so I just stopped offering. Nights were different though. At night, my normally spastic, energetic, chatty girl would crawl up in my lap and nurse herself to sleep. She would lay snuggled up in my arms, nursing happily, then she would (usually) peacefully drift off, milk drying on her cheeks. It was the only time she ever really let me just hold her and be still with her.
I didn't even know that the 26th would be our last time to experience that together. On the 27th, we went to a fall festival at her school and she fell asleep on the way home. She stayed asleep as we got her out of her car seat and into her pajamas. And though she normally would have awakened just long enough to latch on and nurse if even for a minute before going to bed for the night, that night she didn't. She just went to sleep. And just like that, we were done. She has not asked for the boob since.
Mike and I spent our weekend away, happily drinking wine, spending time together and sleeping in and never once did my always faithful, always handy breast pump make its appearance. I stopped pumping a few months ago but I wasn't sure how an entire weekend away would be. But it was fine. No leakage, no engorgement, no physical feeling of any kind. Just a small voice in the back of my head wondering if my sweet girl would be able to peacefully go to sleep without me or if she was terrorizing my sister and brother-in-law back home.
I do not regret that our nursing relationship has come to an end. I am sad only because that part of my relationship with Olivia is over and it makes me realize just how quickly she really is growing up. For 23 months, my body supplied her with life, comfort, and a reassurance that we would always be together. And now that physical relationship has come to an end. Though that does make me sad and though there were a couple of nights around the first of the month that I nearly offered her the boob just because...well...just because I guess a part of me wanted to hold on to her just a little bit longer, I am happy that we are transitioning to a new type of relationship. Part of me though, didn't or doesn't want her to be so independent from me. Isn't that strange? I guess this is one of the hardest lessons of motherhood: when you start realizing that your little person, your heart, your every thought, is becoming independent of you. It is exhilarating and exciting and completely terrifying all at the same time.
I don't want to perpetuate the myth that women keep nursing their kids for their own needs or because they don't want to let go but I will say that my nursing relationship with Olivia allowed me a closeness with her that I wouldn't trade for anything.
I won't strap on my rose colored glasses here and say that nursing was just fantastic all the way through. It wasn't. There were times that I thought "What the hell????"
I have bled, I have cried, I have cleaned up milk off the tile floor. I have been so engorged that I've shot Olivia in the eye with a stream of milk while she happily opened and closed her mouth trying to catch one of the runaway streams pouring out in 5 different directions. I have lost hair, lots of hair, so much hair that I have to be strategic with my ponytail. I have carried a breast pump out shopping, out camping, on a road trip, pretty damn near every single place I went. I have soaked through shirts. And before I realized that you could buy nursing bras with a little padding, I was the fashion faux pas of the year since you could see my round breast pads through my very thin nursing bras.
Yeah, nursing hasn't always been easy or fun or fashionable. BUT I LOVED IT.
I will never judge another woman based on whether or not she breastfeeds her child. I do not think formula is poison. I do not think formula companies are ruled by Satan. I do not think really much of anything about anybody who chooses or has to use formula. The bottom line here is that nursing, for me was, simply put, INCREDIBLE.
I'm not sure if we'll have any other children but if we do, I will happily nurse that baby. I will dig out my pump, buy new bras, and clean out the freezer to make room for milk. I will relish the closeness of that little body curled up against mine. I will indulge in the feeling of soft baby skin, of the happiness written all over the face of a child as they nurse. I will embrace every moment when my child turns to me for food or comfort or that reminder that I am there to provide for them. And I will encourage every new mom I meet to do the same.
There are going to be women who have problems nursing, for whom breastfeeding is not an option. And for those women, I feel sad. Because breastfeeding is one of the best things that ever happened for my relationship with my daughter. When we first brought her home, it gave me an opportunity, a reminder that it was okay to sit still. It was okay to be quiet with her. It was the one thing I could do that made her so happy and calm. As she grew, it became a way for her stay healthy, for her to be comforted, and it helped ease minor pains. As she became a toddler, it was the one moment during the day when we got to be quiet and still together.
And it wasn't just our relationship that it was good for either. It was good for ME. It gave me confidence in my body. Not just because I saw how incredibly well built my body was for making food for another person, I also felt more comfortable sexually too. Before breastfeeding I only ever understood the recreational side of my boobs. Suddenly, I was seeing a whole different side and it looked amazing. I realized the true beauty of my body--not just as a sexual being but as one that was built to care for another person.
I became more confident with my choices and actions as a parent. Before nursing, seeing someone breastfeeding in public made me anxious. I just did not get it. But then there I was, feeling proud that I was able to feed my child, comfort my child (quiet my child!), and eat my dinner with one hand while carrying on a perfectly normal non-breastfeeding-related conversation all at the same time. Never once did someone dare to tell me to feed my child outside, in the car, or in the bathroom. People just accepted it because I was confident with it.
Can you sense a little pride here? Yeah, I'm proud of myself. Not proud for being able to produce milk. Most women are able to do that and quite frankly, I think I was just really blessed with the amount I was able to produce. But I'm proud of myself for giving it a chance. I'm proud of myself for asking for help from my husband, my family and friends, and lactation consultants (God bless them!!!). I'm proud of myself for finally embracing this body, this woman that I am. I'm proud of myself for getting over my own fears, stereotypes and pre-conceived notions about what it means to be a Breast Feeder. I am proud of helping to dispel the ignorance, prejudices, and pre-conceived notions of family and friends about what it means to be a nursing mom. I am proud of nursing my baby in public and showing the world that it is not gross or weird or inappropriate. I am proud of myself for loving this process through the good and the bad. And I am proud of myself for embracing the end of this journey as well.
Mine and Olivia's relationship is evolving and we are finding new ways to be close. At night, we sit in her room or in the living room and we read about a hundred books. When I get home in the evening, she runs toward me, arms open wide, and we collapse into each other like 2 people reuniting after several years of having been apart. I enjoy those quiet moments at night when she lets me hold her just before going down in her bed. We rock, we sing, we sit forehead to forehead, noses squished together, laughing. She gives me one of her sweet mouth open kisses. She runs her fingers through my hair as she falls asleep on my shoulder. And on Friday night, as though sensing I needed a little extra closeness, she curled up next to me on the couch and she fell asleep.
So I happily and somewhat wistfully say "Bye bye, boobies." Hello, to the new and exciting chapter in my relationship with my daughter.
