Breastfeeding Rambles
Mostly writing for solidarity in this one...
August is National Breastfeeding Month and with 18 months in I’m currently contemplating how on earth I’m going to end this journey.
Weaning is hard like learning to breastfeed is hard: it’s full of emotion and hormone changes and learning things that are highly relevant for this season of life and will be forgotten thereafter.
There are a lot of things that are connected to my choice (nay ability, luck) to breastfeed.
Emotions
Medications
Medical problems not being dismissed
Sleep
Emotions are a huge factor in this anticipation of weaning in the coming month (months? oh dear the indecision is unreal). When we breastfeed there is a release of oxytocin aka the love hormone and I have to say that this release at the end of a day and the quiet time that comes with nursing has always been clutch for the post-partum depression.
When I had my emergency C-section, I thought I was going to be dead on the table. Suddenly, I found myself awake in a new room and without my baby. Despite the drugs in my system that fought to put me back to sleep, I insisted on nursing my daughter. The moment I had been denied in the operating room was bonded in that moment after room transfers. It’s a very emotional association I’ve had to breastfeeding that my brain continues to tie to birth trauma.
Medications are a second factor for me to consider in this season.
When I was very pregnant at 28 years old I had no idea that my cholesterol would be high enough to leave deposits under my eyes. Not one doctor pointed this out either until I went into someone new for pink eye 4 months post partum. But a medication to help my cholesterol is out of the question until my breastfeeding journey is done.
Secondly, I’ve been taking antidepressants since my daughter was 2 months old. Stigma issues set aside, women like me are struggling to figure out what medication to take because the amount of studies (and their types) are underwhelming. (I highly recommend reading this article by ParentData for a deeper look on this topic).
Next I consider the awful moments I’ve had since my daughter’s birth that show how fractured women’s healthcare needs truly are when I’ve gone into specialists outside my primary and have been dismissed on account of how I’m still two years postpartum. Even my primary care doctor was hesitant to send me to a neurologist because she was concerned they’d associate my nerve pain with breastfeeding (what on earth??).
Sleep. No explanation needed.
All in all I’m feeling a lot different about breastfeeding than I am a year ago. Six months felt like a huge feat and 18 months feels like a huge exhaustion that I am clinging onto like a child with a…well a boob.
In other news, you can get a 60 day paid subscriber trial, which gives you access to my ebook “The Prayer Journal Workbook” and our September community read through.
