Good-Bye Boobies: The End

This is the second part of my diary entry from June 2007 and focuses on our last feed and the emotional fall out for us all when breastfeeding ended.

June 16th, 2007

…Saturday evening rolled around, the eve of Dylan’s third birthday, and the last breastfeed.  Around 7:30pm Dylan started getting grizzly and antsy – sure signs that he was tired and needed to go to bed.

My Dad and Mum were downstairs chatting – the first time they’d stayed under the same room since they had divorced 10 years earlier.  Dave’s Mum and my Dad’s wife were upstairs chatting and doing jigsaws with Dylan, as Dave and our housemate Phil were cooking up an Indian feast.  It was truly a houseful.

I asked Dylan if he was ready to go to bed. Yes! I’m sleepy Mummy.

I had decided during the week that I wanted one last photo of the two of us – ideally of us feeding, but as it turned out, it was just the two of us.  We were grinning with a mixture of ‘almost liberation’ and ‘ending melancholy’. And it was off to the bedroom we went.

When we sat down on the bed together, I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.  With huge crocodile tears coursing down my cheeks I told Dylan that this was his last boobie.  He nodded, then put his small warm hand up to my cheek and said: Sorry Mummy. I told him that it wasn’t his fault I was crying.  I explained as best I could, in a choked up voice, that I was sad because this was going to be our last boobie.

There was a sweet sadness about it.

The only reference point I have, to how I was feeling, was of once saying goodbye to a lover who was leaving for England and the bittersweetness of our last night together, the pain at the airport as he disappeared.  There is a definitely an intimacy in breastfeeding, that has parallels with the physical intimacy we share as adults as lovers – perhaps the reason why many women feel breastfeeding is uncomfortably ‘wrong’ for them.

As we lay having our final boobie, I cried … cried and cried.

Sadly I finally said to him it was time to finish, he pulled off and laid his head on the pillow next to me … and it was finished.  He drifted effortlessly off to sleep and I cried some more.  Dave wandered in quietly to see if Dylan was asleep and asked me if I was Ok.

I nodded and said quietly: Sort of’.

I was needed in the kitchen to help deep fry the kashmiri lamb cutlets, meaning I wasn’t able to linger, to wallow in the end. Wiping my eyes, I got up and went into the kitchen.  Our housemate Phil asked me if I was OK. I told hime: I’m sad, but I’ll get over it. But like all break-ups, even if its of your own choice and design, it takes time to get over it.

Sunday morning we all woke up in bed together.  Dylan slowly came too for a change, instead of bounding all over us and telling us: It’s morning! I reminded him it was his birthday, that he was three, and asked him what that meant – thinking he would remember the lure of presents that had been around him all weekend.  He told us:It means no more boobies and my heart sunk for him. 

We gave him a big hug and affirmed that it did mean no more boobies, but it also meant birthday presents.  With that he jumped out of bed, and we all trekked into the lounge room for present opening and for 12 or so hours, we avoided the issue of no more boobies.

Since then, he’s plainly stated on several occasions that he’s two now, because it means he can go back and have boobies. He’s had to weigh that up with the possibility of all his ‘three year old presents’ having to go back to their original owners if he’s not going to be three any more.  Surprisingly enough – he’s happy to stay three!

There’s still a deep lingering sadness in me over the end of this period in my life and in my relationship with Dylan.  I’m glad that we chose to do it for his third birthday and he could see it as a rite of passage, of sorts, into becoming a bigger boy – rather than just choosing any old day on the calendar.

And now my breasts are returned to me – older, used and much closer to the ground than they were before we began this journey. But I came to this place feeling greatly fulfilled that I followed my heart; that I was able to nourish and nurture my darling son from the breast for the first three years of his life.  I doubt that he will ever forget this time and I know that I definitely won’t.  I wonder though if the large void inside, will over time, become a small void, and if anything will ever be able to fill it …

Two Years On

The void is smaller but it is still there.  The intimacy and intensity of breastfeeding has gone, replaced with lots of hugs and snuggles.  With the superior negotiating skills of an almost five year old, he’s tried to talk me back into breastfeeding these past few months.  It pulls at my heart strings, prods the place which still aches with sadness from ending breastfeeding because it is one of those things you can’t go back to. Re-reading this entry makes me cry every time and I feel the small warm hand on my cheek and the words “Sorry Mummy”.

What remains with me still, after two years, is the deep sadness I have about the lack of acknowledgement my own family gave in regards to this milestone.  While Dave and Phil both asked me how I was, my Mum and Dad never said a word.  Having been briefly breastfeed as a baby, and my sister a little longer, there is no reference point for my parents for what it was like for me that night. To them breastfeeding ended and I got back into the kitchen to help cook up the splendid feast.  Life moves on. And me, well I didn’t make a big deal about it – perhaps I should have?

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Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane mother, writer, lactivist and natural birth advocate. When she’s not writing breastfeeding articles she is working on her fiction stories including a new novella and a fledgling publishing project Chinese Whisperings. Her new blog Writing in Black and White chronicles her journey as a writer, editor and publisher. This week she celebrates five years of motherhood..

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