After about 10 and a half months, my time breastfeeding Dexter is coming to an end. Our weaning story isn’t unusual – he’s been nursing less and less since he started solids, and since I returned to work full time. I’d suspected for a while that he wasn’t getting much out of it. His top two teeth popped last week and that sealed the deal – three hard bites later, I decided I didn’t want to end this beautiful thing we were doing together with pain and frustration so I called it. If I’m honest, he called it a while ago and I was just keeping it going as long as I could.
I’d love this to be a “10 months? WE ROCK!” post but the truth is, I’m blue. I choke up every time I tell someone. Add “weaning depression” to the shockingly voluminous list of things I never knew about until I had a baby (cerclage, breast pump phalanges, wubbanubs… oh, it is such a long list) but I am in it. As I’ve mentioned before, we fought really hard to establish breastfeeding and somehow, that makes it feel worse, like I’m giving up on the tail end, even though that isn’t the case. (I tried EVERYTHING to boost my supply after Dex started daycare. You do not want to know the things I have seen, done and consumed in the name of milk supply.) I never imagined being a mom would involve so much weeping about breastfeeding, making it happen, keeping it going and letting it go.
The logical knowledge that hormonal changes related to weaning are contributing to my grey clouds does nothing to blow them away. I think on balance, I’ll look back and my memories of this time will mostly be joy in the bonding time we got and pride that we nursed as long as we did but right now, the scales are tipped in favor of grief. This stage was sweet, and short, and it’s hard to say goodbye.
And that is probably the last post you’ll read about my boobs for a while. Apologies or congratulations, depending on where your proclivity lay. And for those of you who are dying for a break from the constant influx of politics on your feeds? YOU’RE WELCOME.