Losing My Milk

This is a sad post. It’s really for me, and no one else to just remember how hard this was for me and what a grieving process it was. In mid-January, I went from a full supply of breast milk to nothing in the course of a week. It started with the last feeding of the day; there wasn’t enough. The next day that feeding was all dry, and the one before it was only half. It was going so fast, and nothing was helping. I had already resurrected my supply so many times, and this time it wasn’t working, and it was disappearing so fast. Nothing had changed about my diet or sleep or her eating patterns. I didn’t exercise at all because it decreased my supply whenever I did.

The involuntary weaning had begun. Adam was trying to give her a bottle of breast milk I had frozen, and she was very upset. So I walked into the room and she was crying actual tears, and she looked at me like I was being so mean. And my heart was breaking. I tried giving her the bottle. When I first took her she was excited bc she thought I was going to breastfeed her, and when I offered the bottle it was a double betrayal. She was even more upset. She kept grabbing at my shirt trying to get to her dinner. I started bawling and had to leave the room because being there just upset her even more. I could not provide for my baby what she needs, and it is killing me. I’m almost out of frozen breast milk, so what is she going to do when I offer her formula? It’s disgusting.

I had to decide if I slowly wean her to formula? Start with the last two feedings and work my way backward? Or go cold turkey with all of it? Which way would be less cruel?

When I told a certain relative what was happening and she would have to start taking a bottle she said, “Good. Maybe she will gain some weight.” Wow. I know that is what everyone was thinking because Georgia is so petite, but to say something that awful? She started in the .29 percentile and slowly went up to the .69 then the 1.65. She has followed a steady growth curve, and it is the same one that Brinlee and Daisy followed. I just have petite girls. I was just as petite as a baby.

So I just sat there crying, waiting for her to finish eating and go to bed so I can go to bed. The week we were skiing was the last time I got to breastfeed her. My morning milk was the last to go. I would just lay in bed with her nursing, which was my very favorite. I actually liked it when she had growth spurts and would wake in the night for feedings because we lie there together so close and I would feed her.

I wasn’t ready for this to be over. I wanted to have this experience longer. I feel cheated because it was too short and grateful because I finally got to have this experience. It was everything I hoped it would be.

I called it my bliss. Sitting down to feed her was just a dream come true. I think it is creepy to take real pictures of it, but I have a mental picture of it forever.

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