It is finished.
The Jonah Juice Bar and Breastaurant is closed for business. I started the weaning process when Jonah was 11 months, one week and a week and a half prior to his first birthday, the last breakfast was served. And it already feels as if breastfeeding was another lifetime.
The way I’ve weaned both boys is rather simple and painless, for all interested parties. Essentially, I pick the least important feeding or the one that Jonah was least interested in and eliminate that feeding. Then three to four days later, I cut another. And follow that same cycle until all the feedings are eliminated. Jonah, just like Barrett, was only bellying up to the boob about 4 times a day, for about 3-5 minutes a piece starting at 10 and a half months so I was confident that our nursing journey was likely coming to an end.
When I weaned Barrett, I was elated. Overjoyed. Freaking pumped {actually, no longer pumped}. Any word that may be synonymous with excited…that is what I was. But weaning Jonah, well, I wasn’t quite as excited. I mean, I wasn’t sad about it but I wasn’t itching to get past it either. Because committing to nursing the second time, I knew a bit more what to expect. I knew about this and all this. But honestly, I’m still happy to be finished and I once again feel a sense of freedom. I feel like I have my body back. And I feel like I climbed a huge mountain, two times over.
So the milkers are once again hung up to dry and the plump and perkies have once again transitioned to their post-Barrett-breastfeeding state of flat and flopsy. The new bra has been ascertained. The pump has been put away. And Jonah is pleased as punch with cow’s milk. So, everything’s rosey, right? Notsofast. Just like every one of us is different, every baby is different, and every nursing experience is unique. And what was unique about this time around? Post-weaning hormonal upheaval.
And it was not. pretty. I’d never heard of such business… post partum depression, I’ve heard. Baby Blues. Fully lived. But mammary melancholy? I’ve ne’er heard boo regarding boobie blues. I mean, I’ve heard of moms who are literally sad to wean. Like sad to end the breastfeeding bonding. But this is not the same as the drying up dips.
It started with hot flashes, or “milk sweats” as my friend Kristin dubbed them. Night. Day. Random heat waves inhabited my post-boobfet bod. Kristin used to say she’d get them when she knew it was time to nurse… perhaps my body was going through withdrawals but it was just the tip of the {melted} iceberg. In addition, I had two weeks of what I can only think to call anxiety attacks…waking up with palpitations, jittery throughout the days, feeling like I’d hopped on a virtual emotional roller coaster and living a life as Ashli and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My face broke out like a teenager in heat. Exhaustion hung over every single day. It was rough.
I asked around, called my midwife, and no one could really give me answers except to wait it out and see where I was once the drinkers had fully drained.
And the cloud has lifted. Much like everything I’ve experienced in mothering, in parenting, in the words of my father, it takes but a tincture of time. Time, vitamins B6 and B12 and some very supportive people, and this too, did pass.
So the breastaurant is boarded up, once again. And the crazy train has left the station. At least for now. Today, the breast is history…but tomorrow, well, that’s a mystery.
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