If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you probably know how much of a challenge breastfeeding turned out to be for me. If it wasn’t multiple bouts of mastitis within the first two months, the severe allergic reaction I had to the meds prescribed for the mastitis, the near-impossible levels of distractible baby syndrome (yes, I coined that myself) which made it extremely difficult to nurse even in a dark, familiar room, or the frustrating experience of not being able to pump and store milk, I had my share of complications. From about 4 months onward, I continually set goals just ahead of myself, “If I can just make it to 6 months breastfeeding her, I’ll feel good about what I’ve been able to accomplish.” And then, when 6 months would pass, I would aim for 9 and when 9 months came and went I would say 10, 11, a year. But I never really believed the two of us would still be breastfeeding at the one year mark. That was the stuff of legends.

So, here we are today, past the one year mark albeit by only a week or so. Gianna caught a superbug and it made it impossible for her to breathe through her nose for a solid two weeks. Somewhere after the third day of struggling to breastfeed and breathe at the same time, she gave up. She struggled from that day on to come to grips with the fact that she wanted to nurse–and would cling to my shirts, leaning in, mouth wide and hungry–but she knew she physically couldn’t make it work. It took 2 days of this frustration before she willingly started drinking from her sippy cup. And it took a week more still before she started drinking more than 10 ounces a day of anything. But now, three weeks later and fully recovered from her cold, she doesn’t seem to have any recollection or desire to revisit our nursing relationship.

I pumped until she was well and I do believe the familiarity of my milk made the transition–if you could call it that when it happened so abruptly–to a sippy cup much smoother than it would have been otherwise, gradually replacing my milk with cow’s milk.

Now that I have a moment to think about it, Gianna never was the typical, milk-drunk baby. Since about 4 months of age, when she began to notice her environment and nursing became a struggle against attention spans, I knew weaning would not be as difficult for her as it can be for others. It just came as such a shock that she could do it so quickly. I’m sure other babies would not have endured a hunger strike out of stubbornness. In fact, I know of a few who will turn blue in the face from trying to nurse with a stuffy nose and none of them have let it stop them. Gianna is nothing if not headstrong after deciding she wants it a particular way.

So, I say a fond farewell to our nursing days. I’m certainly thankful in the end it wasn’t my decision to make, but hers alone and it’s liberating to not have to find dark corners and inconspicuous angles to feed her anymore.

Tonight I realized my favorite part of our nighttime routine. It’s this tiny moment between the end of nursing and putting Gianna in her crib, when I gingerly pick her up in my arms and move across the room to her crib. I can see the light on her face from her nightlight, only illuminating the side closest to the crook of my arm. Her eyes are closed, eyelashes ever so lightly touching in the necessary force to keep them shut and ready for sleep and even in the palest glow of her room I can see her cheek, still rosy with warmth from being pressed to my skin for her last meal of the day. Her slumbering body is both weighted from slackened muscles and yet light and delicate with peacefulness. It occurs to me she never feels as fragile as she does in this moment every day.

So, I bring her in close to me one last time as I approach her crib, plant my lips on that well-padded cushion that is her cheek and give her one last, lingering kiss for sweet dreams. It’s a goodnight kiss packed with all the triumph, pride and soul-wrenching motherly love I have. Simply bliss. And I leave her room astounded that a heart can be so full it overflows.

Gianna never was a cuddly newborn. She would grimace and squirm whenever an adult pressed the issue and went in for a little kiss on the cheek. She insisted on being held facing out to the world rather than the usual cradle hold those kindly nurses teach you to use at the hospital. For great stretches of her waking hours I was convinced she had no idea what her own mother looked like because when I handed her off to Benoit and she finally faced me I swore I saw a look of surprise each night, like “Hey, that’s who was holding me all day long!” You can just imagine in my post-partum depressed state of mind the kind of thoughts that were traipsing through my muddled brain because of her lack of cuddle needs. I figured I had just brought to life a toddler, already screaming, “No!” and other self-asserting, individualistic phrases at me in her pre-vocal, infantile ways.

But, there was nothing to be done about it. Gianna would not have it any other way. So, I thanked the universe for bestowing upon my body two heavily engorged milk producing vessels all the better to force my child to cuddle with me! And even then, we fought and struggled each feeding time so that my only nurturing moments spent skin to skin were also clearly demarcated to me so that I knew she was only getting this close in order to put more of those cute fat rolls on her hide and nothing more. I was clearly the milk truck, bringing food at her behest and only because of the unfortunate design of my human body did she assume the requisite cradle position. And, I was content with our little dance. I knew she only wanted milk but I was taking my cuddles from her anyway, sneaky mom that I am.

So, when last week she suddenly became scared of strangers or even people she knows who approach too quickly or don’t squeak at her with the preferred high-pitched mom-like voice, and clung to me with all her might, burying her face and body into my armpit and attempting to hide as much of her 17lb. self as possible in doing so, I literally cried. I admit it. This is by far my most favorite of all her milestones to date. Rolling over and babbling and eating solids are all over-rated. Stranger anxiety is my new best friend! Ha! Mother nature has finally given me a chance to have some petits calins as the French say. Now, anytime I want a cuddle I can just take her and show her the world full of strange people she has never met! The grocery store is a wonderland of such cuddle time. And I am a contented mother to at last have a baby who wants dearly to be held in my arms each day, FACING me, looking into my eyes and heart as if to say, “See, I knew it was you holding me the whole time.”

Aaaah. Life is good.

No, I’m not an alcoholic but I AM the kind of person who goes to the grocery store and comes home with more beer and wine than fresh produce. That’s why when I saw this new handy-dandy product called Milkscreen I knew it was for me.

It’s the perfect stocking stuffer for those hard-to-shop-for breastfeeding moms who just can’t lay off the booze. A portable but not exactly convenient way to make sure your milk isn’t going to get your infant pulled over at the next highway patrol checkpoint. But, since you actually have to “milk” on the test strip, the makers of Milkscreen must be assuming that us nursing moms like to whip out the milk bags as part of our stupid human tricks side show act at parties OR that we’re so hyper-anxious about ourselves as moms that we would carry these strips in our cocktail purses … oh, who am I kidding? What nursing mother goes to cocktail parties, or shin-digs of any flavor anymore? In all likelihood, the only reasonable way we would use this is out of boredom and feigned curiosity (feigned because no result would stop us from finishing that glass of hard-won adult freedom), drink in one hand, nursing babe in the other and test strip held up by our husbands as proof that we are not as godly as we proclaim to be at this parenting gig.

Actually, I hate to admit it, and it’s taking some huge show of bravery to put this out there and risking Child Protective Services knocking down my door and countless ridiculing comments from my readers, but I AM the kind of mom who would use Milkscreen. I am THAT mom. Gianna, you are going to love this photo for ammunition in your teenage years.

So, from one beer, wine and alcohol-loving breastfeeding mom to the makers of Milkscreen, thank you for bringing out a product that will further deflate my ego that I am the best mother in the world, cast self-doubt and needless worrying about my red wine with dinner every night and will further provide me with a source of mommy guilt to obsess over. As if motherhood and breastfeeding weren’t already complicated! sheeesh!