Dear Breastfeeding,
It's over. It's been a great (and also not so great) 7 months and 1 week, but today I say farewell.
{Yes, you heard me right, I'm choosing to quit breastfeeding (queue gasps!)}
Breastfeeding, you were the talk of the town, you were what every mother, nurse and stranger talked about while I was growing my sweet little bundle of joy. I built you up in my head, I was determined to prove we would work, and to be honest you really caused me quite a big deal of stress even before I heard my baby cry.
Deep down though, I was certain we wouldn't get along, and that you just weren't for me. Yet that all changed the day my sweet Sullivan was born. When she latched right on, I knew then you were the perfect match for us.
We sure did go through some rough times, the three of us. There was that time you came in way too strong, the time you made a too public appearance while I was shopping, oh and not to mention the time when you decided to peace out for a second and make us all freak the F out.
Don't even get me started on all the stern and frustrated conversations we've had in the tiny little room at work while hooked up to that horrible contraption called The Pump. It literally felt like the life was being sucked out of me. Oh how many times I almost called us quits in those moments.
Yet, a new day would come and you would swoop back in. I would stumble in to get sweet little girl from her crib, cuddle her back into my own bed and giver her a breakfast I knew was nourishing her completely. Boom, right back in love. Same thing happened when I would get home from work and crave that close bond with my girl. Then again later at night when she would fall fast asleep in my arms, sucking away. Oh how I loved you in these moments.
Breastfeeding, you are one of the hardest and most rewarding relationships I've ever had in my entire life. Today I cried at the thought of saying goodbye. Silly, I know. I hate when people say this, but others just won't understand how conflicting this is unless they've been in our situation.
Yet onward and upward we go ("the girls" included too hopefully ha). And with this I say goodbye. This morning I scooped up my baby from her crib and breastfed her for what I knew would be the last time.
~Moment of silence~
Was I still producing, yes. Was I still pumping away, yes. But I'm killing myself smalls! I'm fighting an uphill battle. I know you're over it too, the evidence is in the drippings from the pump that were once fountains. Sweet Sully even has a growing disinterest in our food and more in the baby food I make in the food processor. Not to mention her two little new teeth, not so fun, huh.
Let's face it, formula rocks and heck, its what we all grew up on and we all turned out ok (for the most part). In fact, I like that word - ok. It's ok, everything is going to be ok. I'm no less of a mother, that's for sure. It's going to be ok. Yep, okay dokay.
Maybe I'll see ya on the flip side if/when (/maybe never/just kidding Mom(!)) baby number two comes around. But for now, its goodbye, farewell, aideu my friend. It's been real, its been fun, but it ain't been real fun. ;)
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