The End of a Good Thing

In my very last post I talked about how I felt that God had reinforced His message of character building and perseverance through the nursing struggles I have been facing. I went to bed Sunday night full of hope and resolve to die to self and endure the pain a little longer because surely relief would be around the corner. Wouldn't you know that at 3am I woke up in horrible pain. By nine am I had chills. Nursing was near unbearable. And by 11 I had a fever and full blown mastitis again. Again. Again. I read and talked to nurses. The said some women just get it again and again. I don't want to be one of those women. Besides the compounding excruciating pain of mastits combined with thrush I was supposed to go to the zoo with Mimi, Emy Xander and the boys Tuesday. My parents of course came to my aid and too Noah Monday night for 24 hours so I could be in bed and only worry about Miller. By Monday night my milk supply had cut in half. Romans may teach about perseverance but Ecclesiastes says there is there is a time for everything. After Miller's two month checkup and he came in the 25th percentile in weight I felt like I was working real hard to push through the pain and keep things going and it wasn't helping him at all. I thought about how I had only two months left before going back to work. I decided I don't want to spend them battling more bouts of mastits and more thrush from more antibiotics. I want to spend them cuddling and enjoying both my boys. I decided to stop nursing Miller. I don't feel like a failure like I did with Noah. I feel like I did a good job making it nine weeks. I got in lots of bonding time. I enough frozen breastmilk to do 1/2 and 1/2 for several more weeks. So he will still receive some more good antibodies. I worried about how he would take it. I shouldn't have. He refused me. He likes his bottles. I am a little sad, especially tonight at bedtime. But just as I felt encouraged by the message to persevere, I feel like this is the right choice for Miller, for me, and even for Noah and the next few months we have together. I feel grateful and blessed to have made it this long, I have really enjoyed the special time with Miller.