Preparing for Goodbye

I don't know if I ever thought about how I would feel once my days of producing breast milk for Bunny were over.  Now I believe I'm staring the end in the face and I feel like I'm in mourning.  I half-expected to be done around her one-year birthday and half-expected to keep going until she was two years old.  But, I always thought I would be the one to make that decision. 

I know my feelings are valid, though.  I have been the primary source of nutrition for my little girl for 11 1/2 months outside the womb, and 9 months inside.  I am grieving just the idea of stopping here.  I am amazed at what my body and what my mind have allowed me to do, to give to my baby girl, and I'm so sad to see that part of being a Mama fade.

Being able to successfully breastfeed Bunny was a fight, from day 1.  I had trouble working with her to latch, I was already experiencing symptoms of some pretty extreme post-partum anxiety, and my body was overtaxed.  I landed in the hospital with high blood pressure on her 3rd day of life and I felt my chances of breastfeeding slipping away.

While I was in the hospital, Bunny had formula for I believe 1 to 2 days and nights.  In the hospital, I was able to get my milk flowing through scheduled pumping sessions.  Half of the attending staff was all for it and half wanted me to stop and focus on correcting my blood pressure.  What that latter half couldn't understand was that giving up on breastfeeding felt like giving up on my daughter and caused me more anxiety and blood pressure spikes than any pumping schedule ever could.  I feel like I fought a hard fight to ensure that MY milk was what Bunny lived off of, not anything else.

I succeeded.  We triumphed together.  We were Mama and daughter, connected through the womb and the breast.  It was beautiful.  And then our independent Bunny decided she had too much to do and didn't have time for nursing.  I was a little hurt, but largely unphased.  If she wouldn't nurse, I would pump, ALL her bottles.  The last time she nursed was about 3 months ago, but every single drop of milk she's had since her first week of life has been from me.

Now I'm sitting here, in the middle of the night, after a long day of pumping every two hours, waiting for the minutes to tick by so that I can get one last pumping session in before bed.  I am tired.  I am lonely for the snuggles in our warm family bed.  But I must press on.  For me.  For her.  I will fight for every last drop I can give her and will surrender only when my body or my family cannot take the strain of constant pumping, extra calories, or days without adequate sleep.

The thought of closing this part of our mother-daughter relationship strikes me to my very core.  I am not a judge of those who didn't/don't breastfeed; every family must decide what's best for them and be PROUD of that decision.  But, I do know that mothers who have provided their milk to nourish their children have something that other mothers don't.  I don't know what it is and I don't know why it is.  I just know that, after we fought so damn hard to be that source of nourishment for our children, we have it.  And no one can take that away.

Losing that ability, especially when it's not by choice, is filling me with grief.  I know it is not the end of the world, but it is the end of something very special, something no one can take away from me, and something no one but me can ever claim.