a closed chapter

this blog started as a place for me to share my millions of pictures i took. then it started becoming a place where i write. i still love looking back and reading what my kids were doing at certain ages. and it is most definitely my saving grace when i am making their photo books two years after the fact. 

if you know me you know that i love nursing. i didn't plan on enjoying it. like every pregnancy and birth your baby has a story. and feeding your baby is no different. each of my kids ate the same thing but the way they ate was different. the first only nursed. forget a bottle. i didn't want to be that tied down. so the second realized he loved a bottle. turns out i didn't want to be married to a pump. so this time, knowing it was the last was going to be what it was. he nursed from the minute he was born. he was a great eater. he loved it and i felt like i was doing the right thing for him. i had always done parent led weaning with my older two because we wanted to try to have a baby and i just wanted my body back for atleast a month. but this time, i'd done some reading on baby led weaning. i thought i'd go ahead and wean him this summer. for sure before school started because that would be awkward, right? it was a saturday and i nursed him before his nap. our power went out and for the first time since he was a baby i heard him drinking in silence. no box fan blowing, no kids in the background, just him drinking milk. it's a sweet sound that's hard to forget. i had my phone and took a video. i will never delete it. the next day he got a cold and had difficulty eating and breathing and he gagged. he tried again and gagged again. no big deal i thought, we'll eat before bed. but bed time rolled around and he refused as if it was poison. i tried again and again. to him that was a traumatic. an experience he didn't want. he was confused and for weeks when we would normally nap he was inconsolable. i tried everything i could to get him to latch and it was over. just like that. we were going through growing pains together. i have been dumped by a boy, rejected from a job interview, i didn't make the team as a kid. but, nothing and i mean nothing could come close to the rejection i felt from him. my heart broke into a million pieces. i continued to pump thinking it's a strike and he'll come back. but, he never did. i will say goodbye to the pump next week forever and it's bittersweet. as crazy as it sounds i miss those middle of the night feedings. i still pick him up sometimes before i go to bed and just rock him. 

i thought a lot about sharing this. i realize how long we did make it and how many people wanted to go this long and couldn't. but, it still hurts. i will never nurse another baby in my life. i knew pregnancy would end, i knew i would never give birth again. i just never quite prepared my heart for those things that happen everyday but someday they won't. i read THIS post today and i realized just how thankful i am.