If you had told me after G was born - or especially after A, having failed twice in my mind - that I would be sitting up at 12:30 AM happily pumping to keep from becoming painfully engorged while my nearly seven month old nursling slept fitfully beside me (darn teeth), I would have called you crazy. I had yet to nurse a child beyond two months, though I had high hopes both times. My ideal nursing relationships would have lasted well beyond a year - though of course I would have reluctantly called it quits whenever my beautiful boys would have decided it was time to stop. But they never did work out to begin with, and it left my heart and breasts deflated and broken.
Then there was E.
Much has changed - my support, my knowledge, my situation. My resolve has grown ten times over, and I have learned well how to handle the problems that often stand between a newly nursing mother and her bitty baby. My birth with E was different in many ways, too, as was the postpartum period (that ended up being thrown disastrously off). I have grown and changed and learned so very much. It has all lead me, blessedly enough, to being a mom who has breastfed a baby for the better part of a year - without a drop of formula or (although there's nothing wrong with it) another mom's milk passing his lips. He has begun to eat solids now (okay, he started nearly two months ago, when he first started getting teeth and displayed all of the expected food-ready developmental milestones one would watch for), but I am still his primary source of nutrition and, most importantly, comfort. He will at times prefer a pacifier if his sole need is simply to suck, but if he truly feels comfort is necessary he will sooner turn to me and no other will do.
It is the most amazing thing in the world!
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