My sweet baby girl is now 8 months old and I am very proud to say that I am still breastfeeding!! Of the three kids that I delivered, she has now breastfed longer than any of them. I feel so fortunate that God saw fit to allow me to provide nourishment for my children in this manner.
I know that I haven't gotten to this point in our lives without making some serious sacrifices, but when it is 3:00AM and baby girl is up for the fourth time because she's needing some comfort nursing, those sacrifices seem so silly and I get to have some special mommy time with her. Now, I'm not saying I'm always happy about being up just to comfort nurse, however, in the grand scheme of things, if my baby needs me to be there so she can feel safe and comforted, then by golly I will be there.
I thought about my desire to continue nursing once school starts again today. Do I really want to rearrange the lunch schedule so my third block will go to lunch earlier so that I can pump? Do enjoy the stares in the morning when I come into school looking like a serious bag lady carrying in my pocketbook, laptop bag, and pump everyday? Looking at my supply of frozen milk, I think I can probably make it her first birthday without pumping again. Then she could start on cow's milk and we can say that this child never had any formula. All of this came to mind as I was sitting at a stoplight on Laurens Road on the way to my AP Chemistry training today. Yep, I was pumping as I was driving down the road. The man in the truck next to me got to see a little more scenery on the way to work than he had ever planned on! Safe? Not particularly. Necessary? Not totally. Worth it? Absolutely!
Once I got home, the feeling of "why am I doing this" hit again as I realized that there was no way that I would make it in to the house in one trip. I had to get baby girl, my pocketbook (which was holding 3 AP chemistry books), diaper bag, pump bag, and the mail and newspaper from today into the house. Looking at the pile of stuff in my car and then all the stairs, I just started to cry. Baby girl looked at me like I was crazy and then she started to cry also. So there we sat. In the garage, both crying and neither really knowing why.
After a few minutes, we got up and I straightened out my big girl panties and got on with my day. I read a great quote about crying the other day and found it most appropriate at this point. It said something along the lines of "I don't cry because I'm weak but because I've been too strong for too long."
What was the point of this post? I'm still working on that one. I'm sure that it will come to me, but for right now, I've got some homework to do for my AP Chemistry certification course, bottles to wash, milk to freeze, pump parts to sterilize and likely 2-3 comfort nursing sessions and one more good cry session.
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