It has been three weeks since I breastfed my baby. On that last morning, for her final feed from me, I sat up in bed and held her in my arms. It was early, the rest of the house slept, there was only us.
She rested her head in the crook of my right elbow, her eyes-half closed. She wrapped her fingers around my necklace and clung to it. I ran the back of my hand across her cheek and then stroked her hair. I murmured to her, telling her this was the last time.
It was a short feed. And then, before I was ready, it was over. Jasmin sat up, ready to start her day. She was awake, suddenly, and had more important things to do than snuggle in bed with mummy.
She grew up in that moment. She became independent in a way she hadn’t been until then. She became a little less mine. I would have to share her more now. Our thing that was only us was over.
She talked to me in her baby language. She didn’t know this was it. She didn’t know it was over.
That was three weeks ago.
Today, Jasmin has three carefully measured bottles of formula at about the same time each day. I usually feed her, but it doesn’t have to be me. She will take the bottles from my mum or my husband too. It used to be just me who could feed her.
She now naps like clockwork. She’ll go to sleep just as beautifully when my mum or husband put her down. It used to be just me who could put her to bed. After hours of sleepy cuddles and half-needed feeds, she would fall asleep in my arms.
Jasmin still searches sometimes for milk from me. She doesn’t quite remember though how to feed, I don’t think, because she isn’t sure what she is looking for. It’s just some instinct, some half-remembered thing she used to do. Soon she will forget.
She will forget the hours I held her to me. She will forget the hours when she was only calmed by feeding. She will forget what it felt like, what comfort she had. And I will forget parts of this too.
I already can’t quite remember some of what it was like.
I won’t remember it all, but I’ll try to hold on to knowing that for ten months, Jasmin and I had this thing that was only ours. I loved it. She loved it. And for a little while afterwards, I missed it so much. I felt overwhelming sadness and loss. And then I saw that Jasmin wasn’t sad or lost at all. And she was still mine.
