When nursing comes to an end

A month or so ago, my nursing / breastfeeding journey came to an end. And with it came a lot of emotions and also none at all.

If you’ve hung out with me on social in any capacity or had a conversation with me over the last year (especially in the first few months of baby girl’s life) you’ll know that nursing was one of the hardest parts of transitioning into motherhood for me. 

To go from only feeding yourself to becoming someone else’s sole source of food and nutrition was more than I was mentally, emotionally or physically prepared for. Despite all the classes, books and accounts I watched, read and followed. There are some things in life we cannot know the experience of until we are in it ourselves. Breastfeeding is one of them.

It’s more than just the knowledge of what breastfeeding entails, it’s how you are personally going to respond to the rhythm, act, etc. of breastfeeding that no book/class/etc. can prepare you for.

expectations vs reality

Going into breastfeeding/nursing, I had a set of expectations I felt were realistic and reasonable: 1) yes, I was going to nurse my baby, 2) I was going to exclusively breastfeed, 3) at least for the first 6 months of her life, but hopefully through the first year, and 4) I was not going to be shy about asking for help.

Underlying all those expectations were the assumptions of:

• I would feel connected to my baby
• If I watched the videos, read the books, and got the in-hospital help, breastfeeding would come naturally
• Baby girl would intuitively know what she’s doing
• My baby would have no issues with latch, reflux, etc. and my body wouldn’t have any problems with milk production, nipple shape/size/etc.
• The help I got would be clear and unified in the suggested solutions

All of these assumptions I did not know existed until breastfeeding became hard. Hard in the form of dark nights sitting on the nursery floor at 3AM softly sobbing after trying to help baby girl nurse, unsure if she got enough, watching videos of how to have better posture, and googling whether a nipple shield would ruin baby girl forever.

Hard because I did struggle with postpartum depression (PPD) and nursing felt impossible when I felt I couldn’t connect to baby girl and couldn’t nurse her, or anything she did eat was vomited minutes later.

Hard because no one explained that a baby with reflux is a problem and isn’t just something to be brushed off and can come with different, occasionally contradictory, opinions on what treatment looks like.

Eventually, over time, breastfeeding became easier. Baby girl and I figured out a rhythm. She got on reflux medication and wasn’t vomiting after every session. I was seeing a therapist and feeling more like myself. I stopped listening to help that was unintentionally making things worse. 

But the challenges of those several months, breastfeeding amidst PPD (and general postpartum healing), made nursing feel less than the experience so many others said it would be. I wanted it to “click” so badly. I wanted nursing to feel like this amazing sweet tender connection with my baby girl. But if I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure it was that.

And there’s a part of me that is deeply saddened by this realization, and another part that wonders if that was an expectation I put on myself and baby girl that didn’t need to be there. An expectation based on others’ lived experiences. Experiences that I am not jealous of or knocking by any means, but experiences that just weren’t going to be mine.*

approaching the end

Needless to say when my nursing journey was approaching what felt like its end (aka one year of baby girl’s life), I was conflicted. Somewhere in my heart I was ready for it. I was ready to have my body back and to wear what I wanted to wear and not have to worry if it was too short, too long, too difficult, too fill in the blank to nurse in, etc. I was ready to not be limited in my time to do solo errands or squeeze work meetings in (read: counting minutes for when I had to be available to nurse). 

Yet another part of me was sad. I wanted my nursing journey to click, so maybe if I just waited a little longer it would? I wanted to make it the full year and maybe longer, other women did, couldn’t I? I wanted to prove to myself I could make it longer.

But as life would have it, some outside of life circumstances prompted me to strongly consider bringing it to an end before the one year mark (my husben would say “barely” since it was only a couple weeks shy of her first birthday). Due to a stressful life situation, my supply was dropping drastically and thanks to new teeth in baby girl’s mouth, nursing was becoming increasingly more painful – physically, emotionally, and mentally. 

I kept telling myself to just give it a little longer. Push past the pain. Make it to the year. Fix the latch. But even with trying to fix the latch and wanting to push past the pain, I knew in my heart, I was pushing to continue for reasons that wouldn’t outweigh the toll it was beginning to take on my body, heart, and mind. 

So when the time came, I had my last nursing session with baby girl and the next morning, she received her first bottle of formula. She did fine and I did (generally) fine too.

TLDR;

Nursing in all its messy, for as long as someone does or doesn’t do it, teaches you first hand about self-sacrifice. To truly be fully available to someone else’s needs, not desires, but needs at any moment in time, laying your own desires, needs, and comforts down. The number of meals I’ve skipped, public floors and cold toilet stalls I’ve squeezed into are numerous. It teaches you the action of love, not just the feelings of it. There are still some lies about my worth as a mother and how I have loved/not loved my daughter through this nursing journey I’m working through, but I’m grateful for what it was, has been, and has taught me. 

And the postpartum packing up and healing? Well, that’s a whole other set of feelings and emotions that I’ll save for another time. 

I don’t know if you are reading this as a friend, mom or parent-to-be, new mom or parent, more experienced mom or parent, desiring parent or mom, etc., but if you are, or know of someone, anywhere in the realm of beginning stages of nursing/breastfeeding and struggling, know you/they are not alone. It can be very hard. That is okay to accept and say. It does not make you a bad parent. And while it might feel like all you’re good for is to be a food source, you are more than that.

If you’re reading this and it’s easy for you, I’m truly glad. It warms my heart to know that for some, it clicks.

With joy,

Val

*Caveat: some women have an incredible nursing/breastfeeding experience and I am so glad for it. This is not to knock on any woman’s experience that is positive and smooth or any woman’s experience that was hard and turned out beautiful, or etc. Every mother’s experience is unique and different and that’s good.