So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu.
During my first pregnancy I had a million questions regarding conception to raising the child and everything in between. My two biggest questions were about childbirth and nursing, both that I feared would take a painful toll on my body. Both, at least to me, were nonnegotiable, so in my near future.
Kate offered up her advice on nursing and I can still hear her telling me to this day. She said that I need to sexually detach from my breasts. That I needed to take every sexual innuendo and get past it, then start regarding them as nourishment and natural. This was sound advice, but unfortunately something that I never mastered. Not everything was sexual. I nursed in public and covered appropriately with no personal embarrassment, Annie helped me with Collin’s latch on the left, and I had numerous nursing “sessions” with Sarah with both of us feeling comfortable in each other’s presence. But I could never fully abolish every and all sexual connotation.
If you're brave enough to say good-bye, life will reward you with a new hello. - Paulo Coehlo
Over the past five years I have tried to detach from my breasts another way, just a complete emotional and physical disconnection. Of course I can’t personally do the physical, but I am the one scheduling the surgeries and picking dates for it. I hope that I’ve been much more successful with this detachment.
In my teen years I was frustrated with my breasts. They didn’t grow fast or big enough for my liking and I forever wished them to be different. In my 20s I loved them. They were just enough to make a push up bra worthwhile and between that and my skinny figure I got a lot of free stuff. In my 30s I had my children, so the nursing began. This was a love/hate relationship. Loved the idea of feeding my children, loved the connection with them. Hated the engorgement, hated the frustrating feedings, hated the boob aftermath.
Honestly, right now, I feel that they have no use, no value. I’m at peace with letting them go. I’m sad that there will no longer be any sensation and I’ll miss my nipples. You can never get anything similar to those back again. But overall, I’m okay saying good-bye.
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