I wrote these words only a few weeks before I knew. Before I knew that my intense nursing aversion was because of the cancer growing in my breast. Before I knew was that the same vessels that were nourishing her life were growing a tumour that wanted to take me.
I had so many thoughts and dreams of how our breastfeeding relationship was going to go. She was going to be my one child that would get to self-wean. She was going to set the time and pace that she was ready for. I was already struggling so hard with thoughts of weaning her, so conflicted. Having the choice made for me was just one more way I felt so out of control. I stopped nursing the second I found out. I put cabbage leaves in my bra, I drank cold medication all in attempt to dry my milk. My milk had to be gone in time for my double mastectomy. She cried a lot, if distracting her didn’t work with a gentle weaning process is definitely wasn’t going to work in a cold turkey weaning process. My surgeon told me when they cut my breast open milk poured out, they wondered if I had actually tried to dry up my milk at all. They had no idea the agony I has gone through. It’s a year later. She still talks about momma milk. She still mentions that it’s all gone. Until recently she even still put her mouth when my nipples used to be. Each time it breaks my heart.
Breathe in and out, breathe in and out, snuggle, kiss, grimace, distract myself, kisses, breath, relax, relax, get off, get off, get off.
These are my thoughts in my final days of breastfeeding my final baby. My day is a constant struggle of holding onto this time. Of trying to push myself through just one more day, one more nursing session, and at the same time wanting so badly to be done.
As this chapter is coming to a close I’m having some very real reactions to it. I am processing, I am celebrating, I am grieving. When this last baby takes her last drink of milk there will be no one to take her place. This feeling has come as a surprise for me. I felt complete the moment I saw two pink lines with her. I’ve watched her go through milestones and have jokingly said that I don’t want her to grow up, while also happy to see what’s next. This milestone, this end has brought me to tears more than I expected. Maybe it’s because this is so far from how I imagined the end of my breastfeeding journey, so far sooner.
My goal was to nurse her until 2 and beyond, my goal was to let her self wean. It wasn’t even a goal so much as something that I was just going to do, I mean I have nursed two children before. I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I won’t reach either goal. Her latch is terrible, she moves constantly as most toddlers do and accidentally bites me almost daily. She grabs at my top and screams in my face for “mine boobies”, she twiddles my nipples and demands, demands, demands and I simply can’t do it anymore. I’ve tried to wean her as gently as possible, slowly reducing how often and how much, singing songs to signal the end. Giving more snuggles. Still she is having a hard time with this and it breaks my heart. Distracting her is hit and miss. Her screams are more intense, her grabbing more insistent and her biting intentional each time I tell her no, each time I say “all done boobies.” It makes me wonder if I am making the right decision, and then she nurses and I feel anxious, I’m doing all I can not to push her off and I remember this has to work for me to. The truth is it’s not.
My body has been shared with another person for 90 months. For approximatly 2,750 days I have either been pregnant or breastfeeding with no breaks. I have had the joys of knowing my children from the inside, of feeling their kicks and tumbles, I have watched my belly jump in awe. My body has brought them earthside, where they have snuggled in and suckled at my breast. They have been nursed to sleep. They have been breastfeed through growth spurts, colds and scraped knees. My body has been a place where three children have been nourished and comforted. What will it be now?
I’m trying to find the silver lining to this end. To see my new beginning. Of not having to plan outfits around access to my breasts, of being able to go out of town and not pack my pump, of my first week long kid free vacation, of having some freedom. I’m moving into a new phase of motherhood and I’m embracing it as best as I know how, with some tears, apprehension and the possibility of what’s next.
A series of deep breaths 