Looks Like We Made It

Looking back with appreciation and regret at the end of the milk saga.

Happy Birthday my little one! We celebrated with a small family party, with food and decorations provided by her wonderful godparents.

Well folks, our little baby girl is now a toddler. Sure, she has been demonstrating toddler-like tendencies for months- her aunt has enjoyed saying that Josephine is the youngest toddler she knows since about eight months! Now however, it is official. She donned a pretty dress and party hat, demolished a big piece of cake, ripped open a pile of presents and now refuses to eat vegetables. She is now a one year old!

With that comes the long-sought permission to transition from breast milk or formula to regular whole milk. I have been counting down to this day since we were about two weeks in. My frantic crusade to keep her on breast milk, no matter the cost, is finally at an end. The night before her first birthday she had her first few sips of cow milk, and the day after she happily gulped down an entire glass. I was surprised at my lack of emotion over this transition, given the amount of grief it took to get here.

Yep, it's Facebook official.

We made it. Twelve long months on breast milk. Not a single bottle of formula. Months of mind numbing pain while breastfeeding, followed by even more months of excruciating, toe-curling pumping. More months of clogs and a hurricane of mixed feelings while weaning from the pump. Hours of accumulated driving with a screaming baby in the back seat, as I raced around our metropolis to collect donated milk. So many sheets of paper and now-abandoned apps, calculating and recalculating milk volumes and days left, plugging numbers into the complicated equation of is there going to be enough? Are we going to make it? Will God provide?

This birthday girl was SO excited to be the center of attention!

Now that this race is finished, the anxiety is over and we steadily work our way through the dwindling freezer stash, I have to ask myself- was it worth it? All the pain, the effort, the angst, the nagging feeling of inadequacy. Was it all worth it? I have to look at it honestly now that there is a little distance. There were so many cuddle opportunities sacrificed on the altar of 'breast is best'. So much stress added to the foundation of birth trauma- how much did this crusade contribute to my continuing postpartum depression? Was it really, in the end, what was best for my daughter?

I don't really think so. If I am honest with myself (and with you, my dear reader) I would not do it all over again. Or at least I hope I would not. The reason for my hesitation in answering this question is that I am afraid that I never really did let go of my irrational attachment to the ideal of breastfeeding. As with any attachment that prevents you from being the person God calls you to be, it would have been better to give it up. Better for my heart, body and soul. Better for my devoted husband, for my daughter who needs her mommy to be happy and healthy, and for my family as a whole.

Perhaps it is an attachment that God was asking me to give up- heaven knows the obstacles that were put in my path. Rather than hurdles to overcome, they may have been missed opportunities at redirection. Had I given it up, I may have become a happier person, more trusting of God's providence and less reliant on my own willpower.

Josephine loves her Auntie Holly!

This does not mean that I am not immensely grateful for all of the wonderful, generous women who helped to feed my precious girl. I am in awe of the strength of this community of women that surrounds me, and am wonderfully indebted to the many who have helped me to limp my way through this past year. I am most grateful to my older sister Holly, who gave birth to my adorable nephew and godson when Josephine was eight months old. I was weaning down and worried about making it on donated milk when she began pumping for my daughter, while successfully exclusively breastfeeding her son. Multiple times a week we would meet up during her maternity leave, exchanging trays- my newly cleaned bottles for her freshly pumped milk. The mixed stash of my own milk and that of so many donor mothers stretched gloriously with each tray. Her donations allowed me to stop recounting and recalculating- and start living again. It is a gift which is incapable of being repaid.

I am so thankful to have been able to feed my baby with the generosity of my community. So many mothers contributed to the soft, strong and incredibly tall girl I hold in my arms. Holly says that she likes to take credit for the thunder thighs!

It is the unwillingness to give up my own pumping earlier which I regret. It was so clearly unsustainable and even harmful. It is the unbroken and unhealthy attachment to avoiding formula at all costs which I would do differently. The cost in this situation was just too high. I hope that breastfeeding will work out with future babies. Either way, my husband and I have decided to introduce a bottle of formula early on to help break my attachment. So much of the hype in this new pro-breastfeeding era can be harmful. I was certainly harmed by it. If you listen to enough of it, you come to believe that being a good mother is closely linked with the ability to breastfeed. This is a lie! Saint Zélie herself was unable to breastfeed, but she became known throughout the world because of her youngest daughter's praise of her excellent parenting.

Thank you to all of the donor moms and other members of our support team who helped us through this first year! Please pray for us as we enter into The Toddler Zone!