It has been seven full days since I have nursed my son. It was again one of those decisions that just occurred to me; it was time. I had no specific approach or solid resolute to stick it out no matter how hard he cried or how frustrated he became. It just seemed like it was time.
The thought arose as I lay in bed nursing him to sleep at my parents’ home in Indiana. We had spent the previous two and a half weeks hopping from relative to relative across the tri-state region, which culminated with a six night stay on Lake Michigan with all seventeen members of our immediate family.
I knew that if any of them, except maybe my step-mom, discovered that I was still nursing my son they would have a field day as soon as I left the room. At thirty-two, I can honestly say I didn’t give a damn, but that was still no reason to unnecessarily reveal any incriminating material. I suspected that the classic legend of my cult leadership that began when I moved to Humboldt was still alive and expanding. Since Thomas only nursed at bed time, it wasn’t difficult to keep under wraps. But I had noticed an eyebrow or two raise when he asked for Cow’s milk with lunch.
So sometime on the fifth night, after too many rounds at a local bar, my sister Sara brought up the subject of breast milk. She had recently stopped pumping for her now 14 month old son. She had done the same for her daughter: pumped three times a day and fed them both bottled breast milk for precisely one year. I didn’t get a chance to ask the details. Had she weaned herself? Cut down to two pumping sessions? Pumped a little less over a long period? Whatever her approach, she was confident that if she chose, she could top off a bottle or two at that very moment.
To the biologist in me that seemed obvious, logical. But to my Midwestern siblings, they found it comical. I attempted to offer a tad bit of information and began with a soft opening of something like, I originally planned on weaning Thomas at a year living up to the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, but I found quickly that both my body and my baby were absolutely content on continuing. I didn’t get far before Sara stole the stage with her black market breast milk investigation. When Ryan was six weeks they thought he might be allergic to something in her milk, so she thought she might make a buck selling it on eBay since he couldn’t seem to hang, and as our eldest sister, Stephanie added, Sara can make more milk than a whole herd of dairy cows. Sara dropped the idea when she learned how sterile the whole process had to be. To be what? Certified breast milk bank quality? In my best attempt to slip a word in edge wise, I stood on my chair and proclaimed that the World Health Organization recommends breast feeding for a Minimum of two years, but Sara and my brother, Chris, launched a two part stand up routine about Sara opening up a black market milk business for third world toddlers. My seemingly revolutionary information fell on deaf ears.
The familiar hint of that exiled nineteen year old cult leader cringed for a moment, but thankfully the thirty-two year old inebriated version stepped in and casually commented, “I still nurse Thomas to bed. It’s common in Humboldt.”
My brother laughed and said “Of course you do, what other two year old asks for Cow’s Milk.”
Sara chimed in “Hey T, want to see who can squirt breast milk further?”
I laughed too this time and added, “Damn straight I’ll beat your over producing ass.”
So on the very last night of our epic two and half week journey, while I laid in bed with my son and the thought crossed my mind that just maybe this would be the last time I nursed my two year old son, I didn’t worry at all what anyone would think.
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