When we found out that we were pregnant with Cooper, I
committed myself to giving my best effort to nursing, with the goal of making
it a full year. With Cade, I only nursed
for 3 months- primarily because I went back to work and wasn’t able to feed on
demand and my milk dried up. With
Carter, my body was so taxed after getting pregnant only 7 months after giving
birth to Cade that I didn’t produce much milk at all. I made it only 2 months with Carter. The third time, I hoped, would be the
charm. And it was!
Cooper was a superb nurser, even in the recovery room just
after his birth. He seemed to know
exactly what to do. We never had any
issues with his latch or his suck.
Cooper was a textbook nurser! I
figured out early on that in order to keep my milk supply up, I would have to
pump in the middle of the night…every night.
So, for 8.5 months, that’s exactly what I did. I woke up, came downstairs, sat at the
counter and pumped. I would check my
email or facebook just to pass the time, but let me assure you that it was not
easy waking up every night. Cooper slept
like a champ from day 1, but I was up like clockwork.
The downside is that I was sick more this winter/spring than
I have been since my first year of teaching.
I suppose that must be common for the sleep deprived. I, simply, was not expecting it. So, I suffered, unmedicated (for fear of
contaminating my milk), for months on end with hideous sinus and upper respiratory
infections. Finally, in April, during
our visit to Florida to see my parents, I gave myself permission to sleep
through the night. And that was the
beginning of the end of nursing.
Today is May 10, 2012 and it is also the day when Cooper
decided that nursing was not for him anymore.
He’s not interested and he weaned himself. Although I am sad in one sense, I am grateful
that he is the one who made the choice to stop nursing. He wasn’t forced to stop due to lack of milk
supply (although the supply has decreased significantly since his
infancy). He just wants to drink a
greater volume at a faster speed than I can deliver. So, there you go. Done.
This has been quite a journey. Who knew that breastfeeding was so difficult
and emotional? Naive as I was, I assumed
that it was this natural thing that mothers did for their babies and that
it would just happen without effort. I
couldn’t have been more mistaken. I am
very grateful that I finally figured out how my body works and little Coop
benefited from my efforts. He was able
to nurse for as long as he wanted and I can’t ask for more than that.
Our sweet baby Cooper at 9.5 months.
