I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
December 19, 2007
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For about a month now, I’ve known that my breastfeeding days were coming to a close. Bruiser had never been an “easy” nurser, preferring instead to laugh and grab and kick and, um, bite at every opportunity. By the time he’d reached eight months and 21 pounds, nursing him had turned into a battle for the boobs.
I cut our sessions to mornings and evenings, when he was tired and less likely to stick his fingers up my nose or pummel my stomach with his knees. After a few weeks, he began to prefer falling asleep in his swing, so our sessions were reduced to mornings only. Nursing had been so difficult that I’d spent the last eight months dreaming of this moment, had warned Hubs that I’d be lucky to last even six months with this kid, had just known that the day I finished breastfeeding would be a major time of celebration, possibly complete with a ceremonial Passing of the Boobs ritual, wherein I reclaimed them as my own highly personal property.
But I wasn’t happy. In fact, I couldn’t even think about it without feeling a profound sense of melancholy. For one thing, I had planned to nurse Bruiser until he was a year old, and here we were, four months before that date, almost finished. I felt like a failure. Beyond that, Bruiser was almost undoubtedly my last child. I would never breastfeed again, never sustain a child and help him survive through the sheer power of my body alone. Weaning Bruiser marked the end of an era for me and I grieved for the passage of time, as a moment for which I had waited my whole life so quickly came to a close.
As I nursed Bruiser these last few mornings, I didn’t watch TV or read or surf the web like I usually do. Instead, I watched him, stroked his hair and smiled when his eyes met mine. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to savor the moment, knowing each time that it might be our last. After a few days of this, we skipped a morning. Then another. And another. And suddenly, I noticed that my appetite had diminished. My breasts had gotten smaller. I had lost a few more pounds. I was done with breastfeeding, and even if my brain wasn’t registering that fact, my body was.
Last night, I did something I hadn’t done in several weeks. I tried on my wedding rings. They hadn’t fit since I was about four months pregnant and the joints in my fingers expanded. After losing all my pregnancy weight, I had tried them on again, but my joints remained inexplicably larger. I said nothing to Hubs about it, but I was terrified that the rings would never fit again. I held my breath as I tried them on, preparing myself for the inevitable disappointment that came each time they caught and held on my knuckle, refusing to slide down to their rightful spot on my hand. To my surprise, though, they slipped on easily. They weren’t even snug. Something about breastfeeding had kept my joints larger, and now they had returned to normal right alongside the rest of my body.
It seemed symbolic, somehow. For the last eighteen months, my body has primarily been devoted to giving life to my baby. Now, it’s my own again, and my husband’s as well. Time passes, and I enter a new phase of life, a phase in which maternity clothes, nursing bras, Medela pumps and prenatal vitamins are relics from the past. I’d love to say I can’t wait to see what the future holds, but to be honest, I think I’m simply learning at this point in my life to enjoy the present.
This post originally appeared in Parents.com.
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