During all the craziness of finding out I was pregnant and my thyroid going haywire. Elise and I passed one very important milestone.
I made the decision to stop nursing her. I think I had been ready for awhile, but just didn't know how to stop.
When Elise was diagnosed at 12 months old, I was still nursing her 4 times a day. When we met with the dietitians in the hospital, I was told I would have to either stop, or start pumping and feed her my milk that way. I had just put away all my pumping supplies, and there was no way I was going to do it. I hated that contraption.
But there was no way I was going to stop nursing my baby just because they said so. She was still MY baby and I knew what was best for her. I could not cure her diabetes, but I could offer her one thing that nourished and soothed her.
It was hard to know how much she was getting, but we soon figured that it only affected her BG by about 30 points. I don't know why, but it always seemed to work out.
Then, one by one, I dropped a session, until only the bedtime one remained. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I couldn't continue to nurse her (for my own health reasons). It took her about a week to get used to it, and her tears just about broke my heart. But life goes on and so did she.
I'm glad I made the decision to nurse her as long as I did. It's not for everyone, but it worked for us. I've said it before in another post about nursing, but I think it has contributed to Elise's overall good health. To this day, she has never even had an ear infection. And when we all came down with the Swine Flu in September, she fared the best out of all three of us!
It was definitely a sad milestone for me, but hopefully if all goes as planned, I'll be back at it again in September!
11 months ago
