waxing weaning

I've read several posts and gotten a few emails about weaning lately. Seems that the girls who stuck with the breastfeeding are thinking about putting the kibosh on the boob.

I stopped nursing when I just couldn't do it any more. I was going back to work and Jake wouldn't take my milk from a bottle, I felt sick, I looked awful, I had a backache, a headache, and I was exhausted being tired and hungry and thirsty. Until he was three months old, Jake ate every two hours for about an hour. This gave me 12 hours a day to try to get some sleep and get things done around the house. I managed to get a shower each day, blog about something as a form of therapy, and sometimes I'd even get a room or two cleaned. But this wasn't good enough. I wanted to be the best New Temporarily Staying At Home Breastfeeding Mom ever. I wanted to have a sparkly house, supper on the table for Dave each night, I wanted to go to the park and walk around town and meet new and exciting MommyFriends. I wanted to shop for each day's food at the Italian Market and wear pearls and an apron and set my hair and wear heels to pull the casserole out of the oven. It didn't happen. I couldn't get off the couch on the roughest days, and I didn't even bother with a shirt most days. I prayed for my maternity leave to end quickly and quietly. That didn't happen either. I sat in that damn house for twelve weeks and lived off of peanut butter, cheese, canned beans, frozen vegetables, and milk during the day and pizza at night. I couldn't really go anywhere, and when I did I was reduced to squirting breast milk in public toilets and alleyways the entire time.

When I decided to wean, I felt terrible. I was cheating. I felt that I wasn't strong enough to be a good mother, that I wasn't doing what I knew to be best for my son. I went so low as to sneak in some nursing when no one was watching, and once lied to some friends who were visiting and said that I had to get something out of my closet when I really snatched Jake out of his crib and let him nurse one last time while they were downstairs opening a bottle of wine and setting the table for dinner. The way I felt when I was nursing Jake was like my drug. I didn't want to quit and risk breaking that bond. They say that simply feeding a child creates a bond no matter how you do it, and I'll admit that it is super cute when you are bottle feeding a baby and he looks right into your eyes, but it is nothing like the bond created by breastfeeding. You are the sole provider of nourishment for your child, and the one thing that baby knows in the whole wide world is that his mother is the only person who can keep him alive. It's almost like being pregnant but you get to hold your baby and look at him. I don't doubt that there is a very strong mother-child bond with formula feeders, but you've got nothing like that.

Formula feeding isn't easy either, but it is easier. I knew that my friends who didn't breastfeed were tired and just as frustrated with their lives, but they had some freedom. Someone else could feed the baby, and they could go out to dinner or to Target without having to excuse themselves and their engorged breasts if someone else's kid cried. Dad could take a turn getting up with the brat and they could sleep for a night. But I thought that if life was going to be rough anyway, I may as well do it right even if that meant a lack of sleep and one more call to the pizza shop and one less trip to the store. New babies can kinda suck, and you're lying if you say that yours didn't. It's okay. It doesn't mean you don't love them, it just means you don't love what they require.

I now know that there are one million tiny ways that I will bond with Jake. I sat on the kitchen floor with him last week and we shared a pear. I get to introduce him to all sorts of new foods and new people and new places and new things, and he trusts that they are all good and safe and beneficial to his well-being. And I make sure that they are. Last night he was crying in the middle of the night so I took him to the sliding glass door and showed him what a snowstorm looks like when the porch light is on. He loved it so much that he touched my nose and said "eep". It's one of our favorite games. I pull him into bed with us in the morning and he tries to pry my eyes open while he shoves his pinkies up my nose after he finishes his bottle. He gets to play with my old teddy bears and I get to steal his when he sleeps over at someone else's house. We do this thing where I tap all on the car windows and make a funny face as I walk around to the driver's side when he is strapped in the backseat. He laughs and waves every time. We feed each other Cheerios. He eats my pizza crusts. I eat Dave's in turn. I hold out my hands and Jake does his little baby run to wherever I am so he can hug me and giggle into my armpit. Every night before bed I sit him up on the rail of his crib and he puts his arms around me and I count to one hundred. If I stop counting, Jake picks up by cooing until I start again. Every day we find something new to share.

And my boobs aren't huge.