We're Done

I breastfed my daughter for 1 year, 1 month, 3 weeks, and 5 days.

421 days.

Tonight we will end play time and move straight to the bath. Then jammies. Then books. Then put her to bed. Tonight, for the first time in 421 days, I won't nurse her before she sleeps for the night.

I thought about not weaning yet. About waiting until we hit the 14-month milestone, just to be able to say that we did. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that's just my panicked reaction to thinking about not nursing her tonight. There's nothing inherently better about nursing another four days. I don't get more credit for that. And the fact is that when 14 months arrives and it's time to wean (again), I'd feel just as nervous, just as not-ready as I do today. And I'd probably look for another milestone in the future to hit, just so that I wouldn't have to say, "We're done."

But, we are done. My body is done. My milk is all but gone, my body's resources and efforts turning to to Dos rather than to making milk for baby girl. When she nurses now, it's more out of habit and involves a lot of pulling and pushing and twisting and other breast gymnastics that make mammograms look like sensuous massages. A lot smacking her little hand on my chest because she likes the sound it makes because she's bored because she's not getting much at the breast anyway. A lot of pointing out Mommy's nose and eyes and mouth and chin and ears and hair and forehead and earrings, a lot of trying to say those words while maintaining her latch, a lot of laughing on both our parts at her muffled attempts.

We're done, and I'm okay with it. I'm not ready to be done, and if I weren't pregnant, we wouldn't be. We would continue nursing in the morning and at night as long as my supply held up, as long as she still wanted to. But I am pregnant. My supply is gone and my body is trying to grow our second child and I'm okay with being done nursing my first.

When we first started nursing, I never could have predicted we'd make it this far. She was such a slow eater. She was so slow gaining weight. She was impossible to keep awake at the breast. I cried every single time she nursed, out of worry and out of frustration. My goal was to make it to 6 weeks. Then to 12 weeks, 'til I went back to work and had to become a working mom, a pumping mom. Pumping at work was a game changer and I was not going to set myself up for misery by having any expectations on myself for how long I could or would keep that up. But then the days passed. And months. She turned 6 months old. We introduced solids. I stopped getting up at night to pump extra, to build my stash. And then 10 months hit, double digits, and I knew that I would be okay with weaning at any point after that. Not ready, but okay. To me, 10 months was no different than 12 months. And then her birthday came, and we saw that positive test, and my supply started to drop, my body started to change its priorities. I stopped pumping at work. Around 13 months, I dropped the morning session. I tried to enjoy the luxury of sleeping in, for the first time in more than a year, but my body was so used to waking and seeing her that sleeping in has been a giant fail. And for the last few weeks, we nursed once a day, at night, before bath time, before bed. It's been our time to cuddle, to stop the constant motion of our lives and just be.

I've been able to nurse her long enough to see her sign milk as she drank. She looked up at me, her beautiful, bewitching hazel eyes gazing into mine, and she signed milk. She acknowledged the gift she was receiving from me.

And that's when I knew I was okay to let it go.

I nursed my daughter last night for the last time. I whispered to her while she drank that I loved her, that I loved the time we had shared together. She smiled and pulled and slapped my chest and pointed out my nose.

I can't imagine any more perfect ending to this chapter of our story.

The end.