Goodbye to Nursing

Well, after much thought and deliberation, I've decided to retire my boobs.

I truly want what is in Bear's very best interest, but it was really hard to decide what would be best for him concerning breastfeeding. Now, I know all of you are thinking "Well, breast is best... duh!" but our situation really is so much more complicated than that. When you are trying to start a nursing relationship with a baby that you are just getting to know and love, the decision to nurse becomes about much much more than just the facts. So, I began weighing the pros and cons (for us) of breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. Here are the main things I was considering:

Nursing Pros:
1. Nutritional benefits
2. Prepares baby's mouth for speech
3. Helps in sensory development
4. Time with mama

Nursing Cons:
1. Time. We would have to supplement due to the fact that I was hardly producing anything. So, we'd spend hours a day nursing and then have to prepare bottles (to fill practically all of his nutritional needs) and sit with him while he eats those too.
2. Bonding. Nursing is supposed to help mother and baby bond, but I assure you it was doing just the opposite in our case.
3. I was the only one who could nurse Bear. ( I realize that's selfish thinking, but it's honest.)

Bottle Feeding Pros:
1. Nutritional benefits, since we will only be feeding him breast milk in his bottles.
2. Time with mama (0r daddy) since we always hold him when he's drinking his bottles.
3. Bonding! Bottle feeding truly makes our relationship so much more loving. The stresses of nursing were just pushing us away from each other, and that's just not acceptable in an adoptive family situation.
4. Thomas can feed the baby a bottle when I am too burnt out to put the effort in.

So then I got to thinking about my motives for nursing Bear. Now, of course my main desire was to give Bear the very best, but I also discovered that one of my deep down motivations was pride. (Which is bad, according to the Bible!) I was proud that I was doing something that most people never could or would get to do. I was proud that I had put all this time and effort into getting to the point that I could actually nurse him. I wanted to do it because I told people I would do it. Now, that's not the right heart.

Someone encouraged me to "Do what you KNOW is right and not what you FEEL." I was doing what I felt I had to do to prove something to other people. What I know is right is for Bear to have a strong and loving relationship with his mommy, and anything that was getting in the way of that was surely not right for us! The same woman also said "I believe God put this strong desire in your heart for a reason" and I think that's true. But I don't think the reason is because I need to nurse Bear. I think, rather, that God had a couple of lessons for me to learn.

1. Things don't always have to be just the way I planned for them to be. There can be great blessing even if things turn out differently!
2. I need to stay true to God and do what is best for my family instead of trying to impress everyone else!
3. Be thankful for what I've got! God allowed me to nurse Bear for a whole month. How many adoptive mothers get the opportunity to do this? What an experience!

I've realized that even though we didn't make it to my original goal of nursing Bear until his first birthday, we did get to nurse for a whole month. And I stored up a bunch of pumped and frozen milk for him before he came home! All the time that I put into getting to the point of lactating was not a waste!

I'm happy with the way things went. I fought hard for us to nurse- nursing him was not easy. And I'm happy that I didn't give up because it was hard, but I chose to stop because it was not giving Bear with what he desperately needs: a mommy.

We're not nursing anymore, and I can honestly say that our relationship has grown and flourished since we stopped. I have no doubt that bottle feeding breast milk is exactly what we needed to do.