The light at the end of the tunnel

My days of breastfeeding are almost over. I am down to nursing twice per day - in the morning and before bedtime. I have very mixed emotions about this! On the one hand, I am very much looking forward to being done with breastfeeding. I am very excited to have my body back to myself for a while. I won't have to think about how everything I put into my body is going to effect my daughter. I can enjoy a beer or two without worrying about pumping and dumping or waiting so many hours before nursing. I can quit wearing these super sexy nursing bras!! On the other hand... I think I'm going to miss breastfeeding!

I have been looking forward to being done with breastfeeding for a while now. About a year, give or take. I do enjoy the special bonding time with my daughter, I love that she's getting the health benefits from it, it was super easy to prepare her meals in the middle of the night or when we were out and about (although sometimes it was a little difficult finding a place to nurse. Didn't so much enjoy nursing while perched on a gross toilet seat covered with toilet paper and trying to not let her touch anything. Ew.) And even though we had LOTS of trouble in the beginning with latch issues and not getting enough milk sometimes, I was also blessed to not have to deal with chapped or cracked anything, even though I usually forgot to apply the Lanolin cream, and I never had to deal with engorgement or mastitis. Its not like I dispised breastfeeding. Obviously not or I wouldn't have lasted as long as I have.

My goal always was to go a year. When she was around 9 months old, I considered weaning. I just wanted to be done. But I was so close to my goal. I had already made it 75% of the way, so I decided to keep going. Now here we are, past a year! I realized the other day that I made it to my goal! It kind of shocked me. I am so glad I continued.

I did have a freezer full of expressed breast milk. Well, around 65-70 oz anyway. But since I have only been nursing twice per day, we've gone through the freezer milk pretty fast. Even when mixing it with whole milk. I am down to only 2 bags left. This is really depressing to me! After these two bags, the only breast milk she'll get is twice a day from me. And that's not lasting much longer either.

Its really weird to me that after this whole year of wanting and waiting to be done, I'm going to miss it.