A Bittersweet Moment

Next week my husband and I will be going on our first trip alone in almost 6 years.  Every other vacation was spent with friends or family and the last couple with kids included.  So, I need to wean the baby.

With my first child, I hated breastfeeding.  It was the biggest fucking joke on the planet... 

“It’s the most natural thing in the world!” 

“If it hurts, you’re not doing it right.” 

Bullshit.  

It hurt like hell.  I tried different latches, nipple shields of different sizes.  Everything I could come up with.  But the torture continued.  We started supplementing early with formula and just before he turned six months, we stopped completely.  I felt great.  Free.

Unfortunately about a month later I was sorry I quit.  I wanted that close bond with my boy back.  It just wasn’t the same and I wasn’t ready to let go.  But it was done and there was no turning back.

When baby boy v2.0 came around, I knew I had to go about it differently.  I held out through blisters and blood.  Eventually (about 6 weeks in) things took a turn for the better.  Unfortunately, he then started refusing to take a bottle.  For months now I’ve been trying to get him to drink from anything other than me but to no avail.  Finally, this last week... there has been a breakthrough!

But it is bittersweet.  I was so looking forward to this moment when he will be almost a year old and I will have my body back.  My boobs will be mine again.  I can wear real bras and not the shitty nursing crap they make you pay one kidney and half a liver for.  A real bra.  And a dress.  A dress that doesn’t open in the front or is elastic and by now so stretchy from use it looks like a rag.  An actual grown up lady dress.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

And in my pretty dress and new bra I will sit and I will cry.  Because he is my last baby.  This morning I lay in bed, breastfeeding my boy for the very last time.  I will never again share that bond with a child.  I will never go through the pain and insecurities of learning to breastfeed a newborn to discovering the joy and comfort it brings in the end.  That wonderful feeling of nursing a baby to sleep.  It is over.

This is a chapter in our lives that are closing today.  And I am sad.  I looked forward to this day for so long, but I guess I didn’t think about what I was really hoping for.  I was hoping for time to pass and him to grow up.  Not realizing that I am losing valuable time with my baby worrying about the future and not treasuring every second we snuggled.