If you had told me I would nurse my baby past 6 months I would never have believed you.\u00a0 After two very difficult breastfeeding journies with my big girls, I had pretty much resigned myself that the third time would not be the charm.\u00a0 I prayed about it, sure, and re-read all the books and prepared myself the best way I knew how.\u00a0 I had a lot of support.\u00a0 Maybe I was more relaxed, maybe I just didn\u2019t take things as seriously, and therefore, it came easier.\u00a0 Whatever it was, it has been one of the great joys of my life and an accomplishment I thought I might never experience. Today Baby V had her 6 month well check, and I could tell by her doctor\u2019s face that something needed to be addressed.\u00a0 The baby spent last week with my Mom so that Vann and I could have a nice break, have some date nights, enjoy the peace and quiet \u2013 the big girls were going to my in-law\u2019s farm so it would really be a staycation for us.\u00a0 The only downside was that I would have to pump for 5 days \u2013 something I was willing to do \u2013 but I could tell something was up when I was getting very little \u2013 and then of course the worry started.<\/p>\n
I have been praying about this for about a month or so. Because I\u2019m ready to have some freedom from solely feeding her and pumping. Because I\u2019m ready to be able to eat\/drink\/take medication\/whatever without thinking of someone else first.\u00a0 Because I\u2019m ready to drop the weight I think my body is hanging onto for the sake of making milk for her. So I\u2019ve been praying, praying that the Lord would prepare my heart for whatever that looked like, that He would give me peace, that the decision would be easily made. And when her doctor showed me the growth chart and said she had fallen off her curve, that she\u2019s lost weight, in fact, weighs less than she did at 4 months \u2013 well tears sprung to my eyes and I thought, \u201cWell.\u00a0 There it is.\u201d I knew in my heart that taking supplements and trying to get my supply back up wasn\u2019t really what I wanted to do, and so we discussed weaning and getting my girl filled up with calories as quickly as possible.\u00a0 And of course, I\u2019m ok with that, formula is a great option and I have two healthy girls to show for it.\u00a0 But I wasn\u2019t quite prepared for the emotion that would hit me when I made the decision to wean her. Which makes sense, as she\u2019s my last baby, and this will be the last time I ever make a decision like this.\u00a0 It also means she\u2019s growing, and getting bigger, as she should, and those early newborn days, as hard as they were, are but a memory now and will continue to be.\u00a0 So I know that I will mourn this for a bit, and I know that\u2019s to be expected. But it also means, for the first time since December of 2006, I will be myself again.\u00a0 This woman, this person, apart from my life as a mother, I will be Amanda again. And it makes me think, no KNOW beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my God is good and He knew what He was doing these last months as I toiled over whether I should continue or not.\u00a0 He was giving me those gentle nudges for a reason, as if to say – I see you. I hear you. I know you. I remember, and I haven\u2019t forgotten you.<\/p>\n
If you had told me I would nurse my baby past 6 months I would never have believed you.\u00a0 After two very difficult breastfeeding journies with my big girls, I had pretty much resigned myself that the third time would not be the charm.\u00a0 I prayed about it, sure, and re-read all the books and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4225,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/4225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}