Thoughts on weaning

Well, we've started the process.  Jude will be one year old in less than two weeks and as much as I hate to admit this, it is time.  I always planned on breastfeeding until it was no longer mutually beneficial.  I was hoping to go 18 months, but it looks like Jude, my body, and my breasts have other plans.  He has been dropping feedings and my supply has plummeted.  I still produce enough, but just barely.  I am no longer responding to the pump and only get about two ounces a day at work.  I'm so tired of pumping and pumping and pumping and not getting much.  It's exhausting.  I thought long and hard about it and stopping at one year is the right thing to do.  I'm sick of spending 1-2 hours a day attached to the pump.  I'm tired of taking 5 pills of fenugreek and blessed thistle 3 times a day.  I'm tired of drinking gallons and gallons of water.  I'm tired from having spent approximately 100 hours in my work's lactation room listening to the whir whir whir of the pump.  I'm tired of constantly analyzing how much is left in my freezer stash versus my output for the day and doing the math in my head.  With all of these reasons, plus a few more I won't bore you with.....we're weaning.  I guess I always looked forward to the day I would start to stop breastfeeding and now I'm dreading it.  It's the pumping that I loathe, not the breastfeeding.  Another crappy thing about being a working mom- all of the stresses above are in addition to trying to maintain a good performance at work.  No wonder moms have supply issues when it comes to breastmilk just from the stress of it all!

Anyways, I dropped my pumping sessions at work from 3-4 a day to one.  I thought that when I did this, the engorgement would be unbearable and I would spend the day in extreme discomfort.  Nope.  If I didn't know any better, I would've thought I had been pumping all day.  It was like my body was just waiting for any excuse to stop.  I'm actually very sad writing this and I know I'm doing a poor job of forming my thoughts into words.  It's amazing what you find most important once you're a mother.  I'm going to miss that bond so much.  I'm so glad we stuck with it for as long as we did.  I know that we are ready to do this and Jude seems to be perfectly fine with it.  It's me who is having the difficult time.  I know that with weaning comes a crazy hormone drop which can cause the blues, so I'm thinking quite a bit of the sadness may have to do with this.  We had a good run and the only regret that I do have is not investing in a deep freezer.  By the time I went back to work, I had around 300 oz of breastmilk frozen and pretty much stopped any extra pumping because I didn't have room for it.  In retrospect, I should've invested the $200 in a deep freeze and kept on pumping.  I will keep this in mind for the next baby for sure, if we are so lucky.

Here we go, the beginning of the end of this chapter....