The Beginning of the End... and of the Beginning

The journey of nursing Auburn Grace has been all over the place.  There have been weeks when things have been blissful: abundant milk, baby who wants to eat, sweet holds.  Then there have been weeks that have brought me to my knees: exhaustion, teething, no milk.  Yet through the ups and the downs, the Lord has sustained me and has nourished Auburn Grace through the gift of nursing.

Thinking back over these almost 11 months I remember some of the craziest, funniest, and just plain ridiculous stages of nursing:

• the painful stage- yes it always starts out this way, and if you endure for something like 2 months, eventually you do get somewhat calloused and become numb to the pain- is that really a good thing?
• the exhausted stage- though you are not in pain anymore, you are still getting up several times in the night, and during the day you live in a kind of haze as you face sheer and utter exhaustion
• the easy stage- ah, yes, finally the easy stage comes- this is the time that you are not in pain, and you are not having any night feedings, and you still have plenty of milk- how gracious the Lord is to give this phase... He knows you will definitely need the stored up encouragement to face the next phase
• the "contact sport" phase- with the slapping, pinching, and biting you would think you were taking part in a women's wrestling match, but no, you are just doing your duty in the daily task of nursing your little one
• the distracted phase- you are so thankful that your little one has turned her attention from something other than beating on you, but now you have another problem... you can't get her to eat! all she wants to do is grab anything she can and look around at everything she can- so you tie up the curtains, and never wear a necklace, and make sure that you are sitting all alone in a single self-standing chair in the middle of a dark room and then maybe, just maybe she will nurse
• the all done phase- And finally you reach the phase when bitterness meets sweet and tears well up in your eyes thinking sad-happy thoughts of the nursing days gone by and the the freedom days yet to come. 

After almost 11 months of holding Auburn Grace to me all throughout the day allowing the milk God gave to flow to her body providing nourishment and life, I sit here with those sad-happy tears in my eyes as I reluctantly-excitedly wean my precious baby girl.  What a ride it has been!