And yet.<\/p>\n There is a not-so-small part of me that is not<\/em> ready; one that, I suspect, will never be ready.\u00a0It\u2019s the part of me that wishes to deny\u2013all evidence to the contrary\u2013that my baby is no longer a baby. It\u2019s the part of me that desperately wants to cling to this beautiful season of motherhood for a few more days or a few more weeks or perhaps forever.<\/p>\n I am, you see, one of those obnoxious women for whom breastfeeding was relatively easy and immensely fulfilling. I have felt blessed and amazed by my body\u2019s ability to nourish both my daughters outside the womb. I have loved maintaining a biological connection with them long after birth. I have (perhaps selfishly) been gratified that there is something that I\u2013and nobody else in the world\u2013could provide my girls. In short, I have cherished the act of nursing my babies.<\/p>\n And now I\u2019m almost done.<\/p>\n By the time I weaned my older daughter, I was midway through my second pregnancy. I was exhausted, sore, and underweight, so the decision to wean was easy. This time, though, there is no new baby on the way \u2026 and I don\u2019t think there ever will be. Though my husband and I never presume to know God\u2019s plan for us, our own is to grow our family through fostering and\/or adopting children. So when my daughter nurses for the last time, it is likely the last time I will ever do this thing that has brought me such joy and peace and purpose.<\/p>\n I am ready \u2026 But I am wistful.<\/p>\n This reluctant melancholy is by no means\u00a0unique to nursing mothers. We\u2019ve all felt it at some point, as we\u2019ve stood on the precipice of a major life transition and been assaulted by memories and emotions which threaten to paralyze us. We move forward slowly, warily, weighed down by the wistfulness we carry in our hearts.<\/p>\n We carry this wistfulness because we cannot carry all the circumstances of the past which made the past so sweet. There is a part of me that will always long for the nursing relationship I have shared with my daughters \u2026 but that doesn\u2019t mean I want to nurse them into adulthood. And although I might say<\/em> that I want my little one to remain a baby forever, of course this isn\u2019t really true. I want her to grow into the person God created her to be, which means embracing each new phase of motherhood as it arrives.<\/p>\n And so we are weaning: she from me, I from her.<\/p>\n As I refuse more frequently her requests to nurse, and as I create new routines to replace the old, I find myself returning to a Scripture passage that resonates even more with me now than it did at my wedding years ago:<\/p>\n When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; and the greatest of these is love. ~ <\/em>1 Corinthians 13:11-13<\/p>\n Now I know my daughter only in part. I can think of nothing more worth the weight of wistful nostalgia than the assurance that as she grows, I will know her\u2013and love her\u2013more fully. So, together, she and I will put an end to this particular childish thing, and abide in what remains.<\/p>\n ~ Nicole Steele Wooldridge is a friend of Sister Julia\u2019s who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters. She is aware that writing about breastfeeding is a surefire way to ignite the Mommy Wars, but as she previously blogged<\/span><\/a>, she is a conscientious objector to these conflicts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am in the process of weaning my almost two-year-old daughter. Although I have enjoyed a wonderful nursing relationship with her since she was born, it\u2019s time to break it off. Whereas breastfeeding used to be a tender, relaxing, sometimes-euphoric experience, it has recently become a burden of which I wish to free myself. I...","protected":false},"author":51099403,"featured_media":5092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[698755598,115341],"tags":[4414,36894,357384055,4455,401,7816,3785,186868,4089,3607,5309,306568,173772],"series":[698756626],"class_list":["post-5088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-family-life","category-equity-and-justice-equity-and-justice","tag-baby","tag-breastfeeding","tag-corinthians-1311-13","tag-daughters","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-love","tag-mommy-wars","tag-motherhood","tag-nostalgia","tag-parenting","tag-weaning","tag-wistful","series-messy-jesus-business"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/sunset-silhouette-1412362-m.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/feed\/podcast\/messy-jesus-business","embedCode":"![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/sunset-silhouette-1412362-m.jpg\")
<\/a>Weaning the weight of wistful nostalgia<\/a><\/blockquote>