The very last bag of breastmilk.
I’m holding it in my hand. I’m staring down at it. I feel a knot growing in my throat right above my collarbone.
How could this possibly be it? How is it over already?
I spent 11 months producing this stuff, this biological magic, for my baby.
Not as easily as magic of course. This is not some spoonful-of-sugar-type of thing where it’s a “snap, the job’s a game” sort of Marry Poppins’ brand of wonderment.
But breastfeeding, to me, is as bewildering as magic. My body did this thing. This weird, amazing thing. Before breastfeeding, how I thought it all would work and how it would feel didn’t come close to reality.
And seemingly as quickly as my body started it, it’s over.
But there was all of the stuff in the middle.
All of the hours nursing. All of the hours pumping. All of the physical pain. All of the exhaustion. All of the water to stay hydrated. All of the snacks (so many snacks) to satisfy my insatiable, hormone-driven hunger.
The washing, the counting, the research, the appointments, the rule-following, the double-checking.
I am happy to bid all of that middle stuff farewell.
But I am also sad to know, with this last bag in my hand, it’s all over. Though I stopped nursing my baby a month ago, preparing this final bag makes it all over.
No more feeding my baby the biological magic from my own body.
It is amazing, though. My body grew an actual human being. And my body fed that human being exclusively for months, and supplementally for many more months. Until now.
That is some fancy magic trick. It is the best magic trick I have ever done. And I didn’t even know I could do it.
