The new normal

Today I nursed my baby for the last time.

This day has come for me before. Twice. But on those occasions, it was on mine and my baby's terms. Not cancer's.

I think that is what makes it all the more harder; it is the first thing cancer is taking from me. Soon it will be my hair. My energy. Possibly my breasts. And, ever looming, the ominous threat of my life. Even 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, I will always wonder if it has come back for me.

And I cannot handle it.

Breastfeeding means a lot to me. I love tummy to tummy, putting my baby in milk comas, him holding my finger in his little hand. I love all of *our* quirky, nursy things that we do. I love wearing him in a carrier close to me where he can just nurse and fall asleep to the sound of my heart. I love when he wakes up in the middle of night and just nurses back to sleep in my arms.

No bottles. No formula. No water. No pacifier. Just us. We are enough for each other. Until I became a breast cancer warrior six days ago...

Now, I can't nurse my baby anymore. My cancer is too aggressive to wait for treatment and needs chemo immediately. Today is Monday, and I start on Thursday, exactly 8 days since I was diagnosed. No time to prepare. No time to mourn. No time...

My sweet and talented photographer friend captured special moments of our family the day after my diagnosis. I wanted to freeze a moment in time with our family, before I lose my hair, before any future surgery. I especially wanted to capture Sawyer and I nursing, as I knew our days doing so were drawing to a close. It helped in many ways to end that chapter, one which neither he nor I were ready to end. One which was robbed of us. One which I held on to bitterly until the end.

Nursing in our creaky, old rocking chair

And so here I am tonight. Reflecting.

This morning after our school run, Sawyer and I came home and nursed on the sofa, just as we had so many times before over the past six months. It was raining, and he sat cuddled in my lap, looking up at me, and fell asleep on my chest. No bottles. No formula. Just us.

Any other morning, I would have transferred him to his bed. Laundry needs folding, dishwasher emptying. But not today.

This morning, I sat there with him, to just...be.

I knew if I sat there too long, I would cry again. And I didn't want to end our breastfeeding journey like that. I wanted to be happy. So I did something I usually frown upon...I distracted myself on my phone as he slept on my lap. Usually I like to be "present". But in this case, being present was too beautiful and sad all at the same time. My heart was both bursting and breaking...

Eventually I carried him up to his nursery. It was time to leave soon for my MRI. This was it.

He woke up on the journey up the stairs, and I changed his diaper and dressed him in his new outfit from the Easter Bunny, an oatmeal hooded cardigan and matching pants with clouds on the knees. And I decided we had one more minute before we had to leave...

So we sat in the old creaky rocking chair in his nursery. The same one I nursed his brother and sister in before him. And we rocked and nursed and stared at each other.

We both knew.

That was it. It was our last time.

This evening, he cried and cried.

It was an evening filled with bottles, and formula, and water, and pacifiers. It wasn't just us anymore.

Eventually, after refusing the bottle, I rocked him in our rocking chair until he sobbed himself to sleep. I sobbed, too.

I suppose this is our new normal.