I know. I know. It’s what makes me a crappy blogger. I totally went on and on and on and poured my heart out about my feelings and fears on finally starting the weaning process after a year of breastfeeding, and then I never came back to tell you how it went.
If Delilah were attending Boobie-Juice Anonymous meetings, she’d be getting her three week token. (Is that a thing? 21 day token?) All in all, my girl took it like a champ. It was hard for both of us, but we got through it with a lot of cuddles, and a very supportive Daddy (her Daddy, not mine, although my Dad was also supportive in an appropriately not-involved way) but she did it. We went from an immeasurable number of feedings a day down to three with virtually no flack whatsoever. One tough day of her clawing at my boobs and screaming in my face, before she seemed to get it. By day two, saying no to breastfeeding was as simple as offering her a snack or a cuddle instead. By the time we dropped our next feeding, she barely blinked. (I may be over simplifying, but you get the gist.)
Actually, the thing that surprised me the most about the process was how malleable our feeding schedule turned out to be. After a year of feeling trapped under a suckling babe, I was kind of shocked to realize that had I stopped worrying so much about letting her “lead” and just set a couple of limitations earlier in the breastfeeding relationship I think the whole thing would have been much less stressful for me. Lesson learned.
It took nearly three weeks for my milk to stop. That part was brutal. It would feel fine for a few days, and then suddenly, I’d be engorged like when Dee was newborn. And the clogs. OH the clogs. I’d only ever had one clogged duct before, but I probably had 10 over the past few weeks. Finally it was living, working, and sleeping with cabbage leaves in my too-tight sports bra that did the trick. {If you follow me on twitter, then you are already well aware of that. I was not psyched.} On the bright side, it’s finally over, and I get to treat myself to some fancy new brassieres.
On the less bright side, I’ve been really, really sad. Oh, and AGRO. Like, I almost ran over this a-hole who was standing in a parking spot for 20 minutes “holding it for her friend” while I circled the mean streets of Santa Monica on the one freaking night in an entire year that Sara and I were both able to sneak away for a dinner sans kids. I mean, who the fuck does that? Like, if your friend is right behind me, FINE, but 20 minutes later? And with your hand on your hip like I am being unreasonable for asking you to move after my fourth circle around the block? You are lucky your spinal column is still connected to your brain. My car has Turbo. {I would totally never run anyone over no matter how much bad bleach jobs or botox or pleather or idiocy they are covered in while standing between me and my parking spot.}
Okay, so with that little anecdote in mind, I guess a little depressed is probably the right word for all this? But that’s such a dreary descriptor, and this has been really different from how I felt in the throws of PPD. This is more like…Holy hormones, Batman. I’m not actively miserable…I’m not thinking terrible thoughts all day, or loathing myself or anything so extreme as that. I’m just feeling off, and listless…like a foggy funk that I can’t wait to come out the other side of because it’s making me so scattered that I missed my therapy appointment this morning. I just straight didn’t show up. And I feel kind of sick about it. Which is stupid, because no matter how much you like your shrink I think that being wracked with guilt over the possibility that you’ve disappointed them is kind of defeating the purpose of the whole therapy thing in the first place. Isn’t it? But that’s kind of the weird thing about me and therapy. I think it’s a fine line between being too hard on yourself and excusing all of your bad behaviors in the name of mental health. I struggle with that pretty much daily. Definitely every time I’m on the couch. Definitely every time I even acknowledge that I’m in therapy to begin with. Like even now while I’m typing this. But I digress. As usual.
What are we talking about again? Oh yeah. Weaning. It’s really just sad stuff. Not only do I feel like I’ve lost those special quiet moments with my baby (which, c’mon – I basically did nothing but bitch about and have panic attacks during) but I also feel like I’ve lost my right to participate in the breastfeeding community. Which is also so crazy. Because even though I have little-to-no filter these days and I haven’t held back when talking about my love/hate relationship with BFing? I still think it is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever had the privilege of experiencing. I still think that it’s absolutely something that everyone should try to do if they’re physically capable and it makes sense for their family. I absolutely, unequivocally want to be clear that I support breastfeeding. But it still feels a little bit ostracizing to no longer be doing it. Almost immediately I find myself feeling inadequate when faced with extended breastfeeders. Almost immediately I felt like I should have gone longer, tried harder, done more. Of course, rationally I realize that all of this ostracizing is in my head. That no one has stopped talking to me, or respecting me because I’ve ceased to lactate. But that doesn’t make it any less there. I was a part of this wonderful community that stands for something, and now I’m not. That’s a hard pill to swallow, and I’m feeling the loss.But that’s the beauty of motherhood (not the prison, Erica Jong, although I have lots of thoughts and feelings about that too, which I’m too tired to talk about right now…oh the irony) ~ that it makes us want to be our best. Or at least me. It makes me want to be the best Mom I can be. The best everything I can be, really.
Still, after nearly 13 months, weaning was the right choice for Delilah and I. It was painful. It was hard. It was sad. I’m still sad. But for us, it was time. Our time together although it’s markedly less now that I’m back to work, feels more like the quality time I’d yearned for when I’d watch her play so happily with anyone without milk bags (not the Canadian kind…the boob kind. Did you know they sell milk in bags in Canada?) Under different circumstances, had I better educated myself, had this year gone differently, I think we probably could have been having this kind of quality time all along. I’ll try to be better next time. But make no mistake…there will be a next time. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
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