Reflecting on my love letter to my weaning toddler/DEAR FOREST 9/11/18

"Dear Tucker,

My Oldest baby.  My independent, sweet, self-weaning toddler.  It had been two days since you have asked to nurse, and now here you are in my arms, asking to nurse again after a melt down about having to take a bath.  I love soothing your frustrations.  Sitting in my lap, I can feel your arms stretch around me and your face against my chest, with your feet dangling down by my legs.  You are getting so big now, but you still know just how to cuddle me to melt my heart.  I know these moments are numbered now.  You've learned how to self sooth, you've learned how to put yourself down for naps, and even dad can be all the comfort you need at times.
Breast feeding you for these last 2 years, 10 months, and 14 days is the most challenging, self less, and beautiful thing I've ever done.  But I know I don't have much longer, so this is my letting go letter to you.
This has been the hardest goodbye I've ever faced in my life.  Some days I feel so touched out and done, but then moments like this, with you in my lap, I am reeled right back and and can't imagine this ever ending.  You see, I'm not just saying good bye to those big blue eyes staring up at me.  I'm not just saying goodbye to those night time snuggles where I can hear you snore off and smell your hair.  I'm not just saying good bye to those tears that have fallen down the side of my breast after you've just fallen down and skinned your knee.  I'm saying good bye to the baby who made me a mommy.  Before you I was just Amber, but the moment you were born I earned the best title in the world...A mom!  Now the name Amber just sounds so empty.  I'd rather hear a little voice call me Mommy any day.  You were the one who gave that to me, and now I have to let go of the last of your baby stage.  My heart aches for that loss.  But I'm gaining so much by saying hello to the next chapter in our relationship.  The baby stage went too fast, but I know in my heart I soaked up every moment.  So many times I was so exhausted nursing you every hour of the night, but I never slept unless I couldn't take another second.  Often I'd stay awake and watch you sleep...I never wanted to miss a thing.  I loved watching you dream and wondering if you were dreaming of me, or dreaming of still being inside of me.  I missed being pregnant with you and I know nursing you kept that connection alive for both of us.  I know you sleeping next to me allowed for you to hear my heart and feel my warmth.  I know you gained as much from that as I did.
Someday you'll be grown, and you will be by your wife's side, just like your daddy was next to me, staring at our beautiful creation with complete awe.  She'll be nursing your baby.  She will struggle,a nd be frustrated, and like your dad you'll know how special and important to her it is to succeed at this breastfeeding journey.  You'll give her encouraging words, and you'll read how-to books, and seek help from nurses for her.  When you see your wife's dedication and love on her face for your baby, I hope right then in those moments you get a glimpse of my love and dedication I have for you.  I will forever treasure our nursing relationship, our bond we created, and the blood sweat and tears [literally!] that we shed together.
You are forever my baby.  Thank you for accompanying me on this beautiful journey.
Love,
Your mom

Update 11/17/2015  about 6 months later:

Me: "you haven't nursed in a while, Tuck"
T: "Nope, I don't drink mom milk any more"
Me: "You're all done? Forever?"
T: "yup"
Me: "How about one last time?"
T: "Ok, but this is the last-iest last time ever"
...as he pops off "Thanks mom!"

My heart is shattered...but I did it. I self weaned a toddler. I breastfed Tucker for 3 years 5 months and 3 days. 8 months of which he has shared with Forest. We battled ties, mastitis, pregnancy, blood, sweat, tears, and so much joy. This has been my favorite part of motherhood. It was not easy, but it was sooooo worth it! But I saw it in his face, this was it. He went over 2 weeks without it, and this was our final goodbye. The most goodbye-iest goodbye ever. The was the last time my body would ever nourish his. I made him...I made him, and then my body grew him, and created an entire other organ to keep him alive, and then when he came out, my body made milk to continue to keep him alive. I GREW A HUMAN AND KEPT HIM ALIVE. The moments I'll forever treasure: First latch, hand stands, picking my nose while he nursed, tandem nursing and holding hands with Forest, making me nurse his dinosaurs, all the times his tears would fall down my chest and somehow my milk made it all better, all the late nights just him and I, the old man in walmart, calling them his bestfriends, telling me they taste like chocolate, helping me pump for Elliott, ok...now I'm crying. I can't believe this is over. It feels like a lifetime ago that I didn't make milk...it's just a part of my life now and I can't remember not ever doing it. So here it is, I'm no longer a tandem nurser. Tucker is no longer a baby, he's no longer a toddler. He grew up into a healthy, loving, crazy, hyper, and smart little boy...and I'd like to think our nursing relationship had a lot to do with that.  <3 
Goodbye baby Tucker. "

This was over 3 years ago.  Let's catch up, since this just made me step back. 

I'm so angry.  There are many things you compromise as a parent.  There are hard days, and I choose to feed them shitty food to get through the day, or I choose to ignore certain behaviors because I'm exhausted, or I ended up letting them have more control over things I thought I wouldn't compromise on.  BUT, when a parenting choice was ripped from you it creates such a deep wound.  It made me feel like HE won over my body.  Like what he did to me finally got the best of me.

Forest didn't get a letter like this from me.  I fear the day he asks me why.  What do I tell him?  I could play it off like "mommy just didn't have time the second time...poor second child, you." Which is such shit.  Or, I could tell him the truth.  

______________________________________

Dear Forest, my hurt and confused forcefully weaned baby, who is still aching months and months since his last nursing,

I am so sorry.

Please know that the last time I nursed you I cried.  I didn't want to let go.  But I was also fighting back the vomit as it choked me.  I breathed deep and counted in my head so that this memory would remain good, and not end with me shouting at you.  Nursing aversion is real, and is nothing new to me, but this time was different.  When I nursed you I was flooded with images of men who hurt me.  I had never experienced ptsd flash backs before, but due to recent events I was a new kind of off-my-rocker, and you were suffering because of it.  I had to choose...do I continue nursing you while it tortures me, and only leaves you confused on why mommy replaced warm cuddles with a stiff body?  Or do I let this go as easy as possible, and make some forced growth happen for the both of us?  You were 3, and everyone told me that you would be resilient and I had already given so much, so I made my choices.  I want you to know that when you are an adult, you have to make choices between two options that either both feel right, or both feel wrong, and sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and pick a path.  I am never going to be here to tell you I made all the right choices.  I just want you to carry on knowing that I always did the best I could with what I had available to me at that moment.  I wanted to reflect back on our nursing days with happy memories, so that would be what I could fill you up with, rather than our last days be full of confusion for the both of us.

I'm not a believer in burdening children with your experiences just to relieve yourself of your guilt, which is why if you ever see this, you will be much older.  But I also want to be transparent with you, so as we grow older together you can be clear in the truth and make decisions and opinions for yourself.  I also am responsible for growing you into a man, and I am responsible for making you into a man that betters the world, not worsens it.  I want you to know what humans are capable of doing, so you can foster a world that can fight evil instead of becoming it.  All humans are capable of hurting other humans, but I believe if you listen, you can avoid hurting a lot of people.  There is power in sharing your story, because sharing your story stops history from repeating.  It also helps you understand the reality of those on the other side.  And maybe you will fall in love with a woman who has been on this side of things, and it's my job to prepare you to know how to love a woman, how to see a woman, and how to hear a woman.  And statistically speaking, it is likely that at some point in your life you will be a lover to a woman who was hurt like me.  And maybe you will father her children, and you will have to walk by her side through exactly where I am in my life RIGHT NOW.  So Forest, right now you may be an 18 year old just discovering the complexity of women.  Or maybe you are 26 and about to be a father to a woman who has just discovered that the biggest ptsd trigger she has ever experienced is this newly postpartum period and its your baby she is caring for.  I want you to hear the heart of the first woman in your life, so that you can care for every woman who comes in your life after me.  

Your dad and I separated in the middle of our nursing relationship.  You spent the first 9 months nursing by your brothers side, sharing your milk every day with your best friend.  Tucker weaned and we enjoyed another 2 years to ourselves.  I nourished your body day in and day out, on demand.  I twirled your hair in my fingers as you squeezed me close, dozens of times a day.  I want you to know that everything I gave Tucker, I gave to you, until I couldn't any more.  The phrase "I gave you my body" is not a dramatization.  I gave you my entire body, 24 hours a day, and everything i did revolved around what you needed for comfort and growth.  I don't say that with resentment, I say that with pride and a love so deep it actually aches in my chest.  I love you more than you can ever imagine.  

Our separation has never been your business, and it doesn't matter anyways.  Maybe he didn't fight enough, but I was difficult to be with.  Maybe he didn't communicate, but I know I came with baggage he wasn't capable of taking on.  Maybe he was lazy and irresponsible, but I was impulsive and anxious.  None of it matters now, but at the time it DID matter, and I was a fucking mess.  Divorce was the right choice, but it was a hard choice, and it affected all of us.  That's just the reality.  We vow that we won't let things affect the kids when we make these big decisions, but that's not how it is.  We make decisions that we know will affect the kids, knowing that we are preventing more pain in the future.  That's what being a mom is.  Trying to make the best choices based on what we know in that moment, and in that moment I knew that taking on the weight and mess that comes with divorce was going to affect our nursing relationship, and everything else.  But I knew that taking a hit on your toddlerhood would ultimately give us freedom to have some amazing things for you in your childhood and through your adulthood.  So I made the choice.  Most of the days in those months of transitioning our family are mostly a blur.  I worked multiple jobs with multiple shift hours.  I got two hours of sleep in the morning, and two hours at night.  I worked graveyard jobs so I only had to be away full time from you at night, and only away from you when you were awake minimally at my par time day jobs.  I did the best to identify what you needed the most and tried to keep as much normalcy in your life at the cost of my own comfort and sanity.  Instead of putting you into daycare, I chose to sleep less, take care of you during the day, homeschool your brother, and let you sleep at your dads at night.  But I broke.  Sleep deprivation came with suicidal thoughts, impulsive behavior, confusion, resentment, and anger.  Everything felt so unfair.  Just when I couldn't handle anymore, I was given more.  Circumstantially, this time in our lives was the hardest I had ever experienced.  Every thing I did was for you and your brother.  Even when I was doing things for myself, it was so that I could be a better mom to you.

I wonder if the pains I see in you now when you are still begging for milk and comfort half a year after weaning, will be pain that will leak into your emotional being the rest of your life.  I have to believe that whatever pain you are experiencing now, is better than the pain I prevented from happening if I had chosen differently, but it doesn't stop me from being sorry.  My heart is broken every day for the things that didn't turn out the way I thought they would for you, for all of us.  But if you're reading this, then we made it.  And I believe we will make it.

I vow to you that I'm going to handle my shit.  I'm going to get healthy.  I'm going to get a grip, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life stripping away the parts of me that are holding me back, and replace them with healthy habits, beliefs, and faith.  And I'm not just going to do that for myself, I'm doing it for you two.  I'm never going to let a man win over what I want with my own body every again.  I won't ever be a victim again.  And that starts with making sure I make you into men who break cycles, which can only be done by a mother who has healthy boundaries and a clear vision of her path.

Please love your wife.  Protect her.  Be patient.  Be gentle.  Listen.  Educate yourself.  Support her. Help her.  Take on her emotional load too-care about the things she cares about.  Empower her.  Hold space and time for her.  

I love you son.