Nourishment

To the prude: beware!

I stopped nursing Arden last week. She had reached the one year milestone, and I was leaving her with my mother for four days, so it seemed like time. But, I am . . . oh. so. sad.

I distinctly recalled the sudden feeling of loss I had when I stopped breast feeding Sawyer at 9 months. I mourned my baby powerfully. A week later, I got pregnant.

This time - knowing it was the last time - I was determined not to cut anything short over my own impatience or inconvenience. Arden's lack of budding teeth and aversion to solid food helped matters so that we actually made it to the American Pediatrician Association's recommended one year. It was a HUGE feat, as any mother who's attempted breast feeding knows.

Yet here, again, is this overwhelming sense of loss. The hardest part was coming home from my four-day vacation to discover my milk had not completely dried up and that I could, if I really wanted, continue. But, then I had to consider weaning a willful and determined toddler and that was something I am definitely NOT interested in. Arden, too, was teetering between the comfort of me or a much quicker and more reliable meal.

It was painful to watch those final tears of milk - once captured as liquid gold - fall to the ground.

My body's baby making days are over. I turn 35 this year and Scott turns 40 (for the third time) and as much as we are looking forward to raising this family over the next 17 years, we are hoping to perhaps have a little life left over at the end of it all. It's a dream, I know. Because kids these days never leave home; because we will never afford retirement; because the world will be too dangerous for travel. But, it's a dream all the same. And I'm sticking to it.