Over the last 12 years I have birthed 7 children. I’ve been pregnant 8 times. I’ve been breastfeeding in some form or another for most of 12 years.
Each child was different.
Mr. Responsibility didn’t nurse well when he was young, so I leaned on my trusty pump to provide him milk until he eventually learned how to nurse. He was an older baby so I faced a lot of criticism for allowing him to nurse at that point, but I didn’t care. I wanted to give him that liquid gold that is breastmilk. He was weaned when he was 2 ½, about the time I became pregnant with #3.
I still remember how he would grab his blankie and jump up on the couch grunting to be nursed. When I couldn’t nurse him he would “nurse” his baby doll. How did the time go by so fast?
Ninja had a difficult start to life, he was born 4 weeks premature. He was big enough to go home from the hospital but had difficulty nursing and staying awake. The first two months were DIFFICULT. But this time I was determined. I didn't let him have a bottle at all, instead when he had trouble nursing I fed him with a little squishy cup thing or a dropper. I pumped milk constantly to make sure I had enough and nursed him around the clock. Within a few months he was nursing like a pro and I was tandem nursing my two boys.
Sometime between Ninja’s birth and becoming pregnant with Hedgehog I had an early miscarriage. Being able to breastfeed both my boys during that time really helped me to heal.
Several months later I became pregnant with Hedgehog and weaned Mr. Responsibility. I continued nursing Ninja until just after Hedgehog was born. Ninja started biting me every time the new baby cried so that was the end of that....
Hedgehog was a nursing pro from day one. He took to it better than any of the other kids did. He had no latch problems, nothing. Nursing him was a breeze. Nursing him thru Kabuki Warrior's illness helped him alot with the huge transition we went thru. Hedgehog was only 15 months old when Kabuki Warrior was born and I had to be away alot to be in the hospital with him. Hedgehog really needed that extra nursing time. He nursed till he was nearly 3. By that time Kabuki Warrior was 9 months old.
Kabuki Warrior could never nurse. Born with a swallowing disorder and the inability to suck we tried for several weeks while in the NICU and finally gave into a bottle. Even the bottle he couldn’t handle and after getting pneumonia several times he was given a permanent feeding tube. Once again I found myself pumping out milk every 2 hours to pour into his feeding pump and slowly drip into his feeding tube. Poor kid never could swallow anything by mouth (and still can’t) but I made sure he got the milk he needed.
When I finally weaned Hedgehog my milk dried up from stress so I had a “break” for about 15 months until Taters was born.
Taters was a good nurser. With him I experienced thrush for the first time. He was three months old and we treated it with that purple stuff….
Taters nursed thru pregnancy with Princess. They were the cutest tandem nurslings I’ve had. Taters would hold Princess’s hand and touch her face while they nursed together
.Taters never wanted to wean, but when he was 3 ½ I finally had to. He just got to big for it. Weaning was difficult, and emotional. He cried for weeks and I felt horrible telling him no more mama milk.
Princess took to nursing pretty well. I worried that it would be different with her because she was a girl, I thought she might be more of a Daddy’s girl and not want to nurse as long. I was wrong though, she nursed the longest of any of the kids. She was also very talkative. At just one year old she could say full sentences. Her first word was her own name. Taking her out in public was interesting because my tiny one year old would stand up in the shopping cart and yell “I need my BOOBIE milk NOW!” when she was hungry. I got some strange looks for that.
Princess nursed thru pregnancy with Squishy. She nursed to 3 ½ years, slightly longer than Taters did. She did not want to wean either. It took several months because she would cry all night long if I didn’t nurse her. Finally last winter when Kabuki Warrior was in the hospital for 3 days we convinced her that the doctors took away all the “Princess milk” and all that was left was Squishy’s milk. That seemed enough of an answer for her and she stopped asking to be nursed.
Squishy is my last nursling. He’s currently 17 months old. He had a rough start, he didn’t latch well and he was the first child to make me bleed and blister. Nursing him was PAINFUL for the first 3 months. Then, when he started teething I almost gave up. He bit me so often I started to dread nursing. Just as I was at my breaking point he stopped biting. Nursing has been a lot better since then, but it hasn’t been easy. When he’s tired nursing goes well, when he’s not….well have you ever heard of niplash? Let’s just say it’s pretty painful.
My body is tired, after nursing for so long my shoulders and back can’t take the weight of the milk jugs I carry with me everywhere. I’ve had mastitis 15 times in the course of 12 years. That infection can rip thru me faster than anything, the last time I got it within 3 hours I was nearly delirious.
I know that my breastfeeding journey is coming to an end soon.
It’s strange to think about. I’ve been doing this for so long, physically it’s going to be hard to stop. I’ve always had the problem of over production. I’ve always had to pump out the over abundance to prevent infection in the early months of nursing each new baby. At one point I had two freezers full of milk and there were no milk banks that took it so I thawed it out and dumped it all into my bathtub. I literally filled up the tub with milk because it was so thick that it plugged up the tub!
I did have the chance to donate hundreds maybe even thousands of ounces of breast-milk to babies in need over the years.
Emotionally I am having a hard time coming to grips with letting this go. I know I don’t have to wean just yet but it is coming soon, in the next year or so, and then it will be gone forever.
My back will be grateful. My shoulders might actually not hurt for the first time in forever. My body will be “just mine” again. I won’t suffer with mastitis anymore, or have any more bite marks. I won’t have leaky spots on my shirt or be exposed in public. (I really hate nursing in public. I do it because baby needs to eat.)
But there’s something to be said about that closeness between mother and baby that starts to change after weaning. THAT’S what I’m going to miss. I have to admit, I have enjoyed being the center of my children’s lives when they were babies. Once they are weaned, that’s the beginning of the end of that.
Oh sure, I play a central role in their lives till they are adults and even then I will be important to them but it’s not the same. Someday Mommy’s kisses won’t solve everything; I won’t be able to fix their problems by snuggling them in my arms. I won’t always be the one they look to. Weaning is saying goodbye to babyhood forever. Once that’s gone you can’t get it back.
I know that everything changes. I know that life must change. I wouldn’t keep nursing my children beyond toddlerhood or anything like that, but oh how I’m going to miss these baby days. The days when my little one looks up at me with his deep brown eyes and coos at me holding his tiny hand to my face while nursing him to sleep. The nights where Squishy insists that I hold his feet with one hand while he nurses half awake and half dreaming. The time where Mommy was the only person who could calm the crying baby.
I’m going to miss that.
It tears a hole in my heart.
And yet, to know that I’ve done this for my children is a blessing. To know that I’ve given my body for them to live in then sustained them with my milk and that God has allowed me to do so for so long is a blessing. What an amazing thing God has let me take part in!
I hope that some memory of the snuggle time we’ve shared remains with the children as they age. I hope they remember that comfort and love and the sacrifice I’ve made for them. But even if they don’t remember it I will. Even when they are grown men and women (well woman, there is only one girl after all) I will remember holding them, rocking them, comforting them and nursing them. Feeding them the way God designed.
I’ve always loved this Bible verse:
Isiah 66:10-13
Be glad for Jerusalem and rejoice over her, all who love her rejoice greatly with her, all who mourn over her—so that you may nurse and be satisfied from her comforting breast and drink deeply and delight yourself from her glorious breasts. For this is what the Lord says: I will make peace flow to her like a river, and wealth of nations like a flood; you will nurse and be carried on her hip and bounced on her lap. As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you, and you will be comforted in Jerusalem.
Breast-milk is truly a wonderful thing. God created it for us to feed our babies. God even likens His own word to breast-milk
1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby onto salvation.
Pretty cool huh?
No comments:
Post a Comment