I’m really not one to look back on a time in my life and be sad that it’s over. With parenting, I’ve always been acutely aware that the time I have with my babies is fleeting. Instead of being sad about that, I am extra focused on enjoying the present, and love looking ahead to whats to come. But sad? Rarely am I sad.
But I am having a moment.
This week (World Breastfeeding Week) me and my sweet baby girl, my last baby, are slowly ending our nursing journey. She’s ready. My body is ready, and has slowly been decreasing the amount I am able to give her. We’ve been supplementing more and more and I can tell it’s time. Each of my three children’s end of nursing has been very different for me – from indifference, to stubborn indignation, and now to this, sweet sadness.
I’m hanging on and I know I am.
Nursing moms know that there is nothing like the feeling of nursing your baby. Giving her what she needs to survive, the sweet cuddles and the quiet moments alone. Quite honestly, we will never be this close to our kids again in our lives. The way it is meant to be, the passing of time, the changing of life stages and growing up. I am sad. I’ll never connect with her or any of my babies like this again.
We’re at the end of the breastfeeding road.
She’ll never know how much this time has meant to me, her mom, until of course she becomes one. And my sons? Well they’ll likely never understand, not truly. And as most things go in life, I know I won’t even remember, at least not the way I’d like to. Though try as I may, I won’t remember how she used to play with my necklace, or her tired eyelids looking up at me, or the weight of her body when I held her. I already don’t remember this with her as a newborn just a few short months ago and soon, to my dismay, I won’t remember this time well either. To me, that is the most heartbreaking part about being done. I hate that about time, how it makes a crystal clear precious memory a little dusty, a little harder to recall, and then at some point, the clarity of the memory slips away altogether.
