The End Of An Era

I love breastfeeding. I do. I really, really do.
Now, don’t get me wrong…the initial weeks of nursing make you wonder if putting the child back in the womb is really an option. The sore nipples… the exhaustion… the aching back… the uterus shrinking contractions… all of these things really let you examine the whole “natural” thing, and question if people were really pulling your leg on how it’s supposed to go. Even with child two and three.

But here I am, three children later and I am at the end of breastfeeding.
Forever.
I’m done being pregnant…unless God seriously intervenes to let me know three gorgeous children are simply not enough for our family, and in that case God would also be telling me that I would no longer have a husband, because there is no way our marriage would survive a fourth child.

I’m also finished carrying an ‘infant’…as the youngest is on her way to walking and toddlerdom. She is also on her way to bumps, bruises, breaking things, tantrums, emptying shelves…cupboards and pantry’s too.

But, what I’m dealing with today is the end of breastfeeding. It became clear to me a few weeks ago that my sweet one-year old was no longer interested in the night feedings prior to bedtime. So I stopped those.
And two days ago it became clear that she no longer needed the morning feeding either.
So, yesterday, I picked her up from her crib, passed up the living room couch where our previous mornings for the past year have landed us to nurse…and headed straight for the kitchen to put her in her high chair for cow’s milk and toast.
And all was fine. She didn’t cry…she didn’t bat an eye.
She was fine…but I wasn’t.
I’m still not.


I’ll deal with it, I’m sure. I’ll have to give myself  a few more days to let my chest heal, both literally and figuratively. But, knowing how much this has been paining me, I’m afraid of the mess I’ll be when this youngest one heads of to kindergarten.

Yes, this is how awful I felt with Shelby in the beginning of nursing.

Sweet baby Hayden...holding my thumb while nursing.

Moments after Courtney's birth, just before our first time nursing.