Intimacy Lost

It's been one WHOLE week since I nursed my baby. One whole week, since I lost that intimacy I had with him, and maybe a whole other lifetime before I will get to do it again. That is of course, if I am in the mood of believing in reincarnation, and I make my way back again as a woman. I wonder how I can miss something that I reluctantly did. Something that brought me so much physical pain and consumed every moment of my life for the first year. How nursing my babies hardly ever felt like that fantastic bonding experience people talk about. I wanted to quit nursing everyday, but when the time came to end it, I hesitated. Just one more month I'd say, and now as Bee turned 19 months, we both felt the time was right.

The night before I had set to end our nursing session, the Bee asked for his usual "night, night" nursing session, but as we sat down on the couch instead of the usual rocker and I proceeded to latch. He paused. He became distracted by the TV. He turned around, and refused to nurse after I attempted to relatch, and I didn't fight it. He fell asleep on my lap that night for the first time without having had his usual bedtime snack.

The next night he proceeded to ask for "night, night" again, and I proceeded to tell him we were all done. He responded by patting the boobs and saying "ah dun", and I shook my head to motion yes and repeated the all done. He lay his head on my shoulder and we rocked in our usual rocking chair until he fell asleep. I envisioned having a much more difficult time ending my nursing sessions with him with a lot of kicking and screaming, but it was just as easy as when I uttered those exact words of "all done" with Big Brother, and he rolled over and fell asleep after having missed his early morning session. Both boys gave it up with ease.

Maybe I would have been less sad if they had fought it. Maybe I would have been less sad, if they showed they wanted nothing else but to nurse, and maybe I would have obliged them for just one more month - one more month to have that intimacy only we shared, but maybe it was just time.

I have a new found freedom I am relishing. I have gotten my body back and it is just mine, but that same freedom scares me and saddens me, too. This little person no longer needs me in the same intensity he once did. I am no longer his only one, because what I now provide can be given by others. Yet, I am consoled by the fact that we were both ready. We were both ready to move on to a new phase in life, and that is much better than having it shoved in your face.