A mother carries a baby in her womb for 9 months where it lives fully on the support of her body. The baby is tucked safely inside that womb, growing and developing solely on the nutrients it receives from it’s mother. That’s why, when that baby is born, it seems the natural thing to do is let that baby survive soley on the milk the mother comes perfectly equipped with, postpartum. Always (in best case scenario) having just enough to nourish that little baby until it grows beyond the needs of just the mother’s milk. That’s when the very hungry and very quickly growing baby moves on to more fulfilling foods and the tired mother can return to business as usual and retire herself from the unique responsibility of sharing her body with another person.

For most mothers, I would imagine, this is like the end of the finish line from the long and consuming road of pregnancy, birth and beyond. But for me, it was a little more complicated than that. I planned every inch of my birth experience with Stella. From the nutrition during pregnancy, to the home birth to the nursing and homemade baby food. So when my ever growing, every changing, busy little baby started showing signs that she was beginning to wean herself from my swollen chest, I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t take it well.
I wasn’t ready, I needed more time, I had just given birth! Hadn’t I? How had 6.. 8.. TEN months gone by already? And while I tried to calm myself down with the obvious upsides; I had nursed for 10 months which is a huge accomplishment and more than my original goal, my baby was showing signs of independence with her self weaning which is the best case scenario for nursing moms, that she was such a good solid eater and was ready to take the next step.. all of which were great, but nothing could quite calm the incredible sadness that I felt about losing that very last step of sharing my body with this baby that I adored so much.
Even though I couldn’t talk about the fact that my baby was about to abandon me for the rest of her life, (okay, maybe that’s a tad dramatic) I knew the end was near. I tried to hold onto it for as long as I could. I appreciated every single nursing session we had knowing that at anytime, it might be our last. I thought about the amazing journey I had been on since giving birth to Harlo and I thanked God for my incredible experience with having Stella. It had been the most rewarding thing I had ever done. And now my postpartum experience was coming to a bittersweet end.
I couldn’t think about that right now, though. I was much too busy enjoying my baby.