Nursing No More

When Joshua was first born, I said that I would love to be able to breastfeed for a year. (Between you and me, I had a secret goal of 6 months as I knew that one year was probably not going to happen for me. I don't why I didn't have faith in myself, I just didn't think it was going to be feasible for me and 6 months is pretty good timing). I went back to work when Joshua was 4 1/2 months and I got very aquainted with the pump. At first, I was pumping 3 times a day and thinking to myself that there is no way I am going to be able to keep this up for a year. I spent more time in the pumping room than at my own desk. Then, to have to lug the pump bag plus the milk bag plus my work bag to work each day... I don't have a word to describe it. After a few weeks, I realized that I could reduce the pumping to twice per day. That helped, but it did not alleviate the lugging of all of the bags each day. I then started to have a love/hate relationship with breastfeeding. As each month went by, it started getting closer and closer to one year. So, I knew that I had to stick with it. There were weeks where it was easy, and there were other weeks where it was hard. As Joshua went to bed earlier and my milk supply got a little lower, I had to really pump before bed which became a hassle. I had also been pumping first thing in the morning while nursing Joshua, but as Joshua got a little older, he didn't exactly like the pump there while he was trying to nurse. Nursing Joshua right before he went to bed was a nice bonding time for us. As he passed the one year mark, I knew that the nursing was going to start to wind down. The pumping at work went to once per day and then just nursing him first in the morning and last at night. I did that for a couple of weeks and then I just nursed him at night. Then, one night, I stopped nursing him at night. The weaning process was really easy for both Joshua and I. I was truly amazed at how well it worked out for the both of us. Of course, it helped that I got sick at the end, so that took my mind off the nursing process. (Maybe, I got sick because I stopped as they say that your immune system is built up during nursing. Who knows.) There are times that I miss nursing and the closeness and bond that we formed, but I know now that he is getting a little older, we will build new and different bonds.