Milk, or lack thereof

Lilah has been systematically weaning herself for many weeks now. We'd settled into a comfortable routine of nursing first thing in the morning, after lunch (mostly just for hydration), in the evening after dinner (same as before), and before bed to calm her down and get her into sleep-mode. I'd been noticing, however, that little by little, I was the one initiating the nursing sessions during the day. Lilah would be happily playing or beginning to make discontented peeps to let me know she was getting hungry for her meal. I would have to literally track her down (as she is very fast), trap her (as she is very clever), and bring her to the couch to nurse her. Now that I'm not breastfeeding so frequently, my milk doesn't let down automatically at certain points in the day like it used it. She has to nurse for several minute, just getting small mouthfuls, until the "good stuff" lets down. Previously she was so eager to get to the milk she would throw herself into nursing so it would let down as fast as possible. Now she has no patience for this whatsoever. I put her to the breast. She sucks for a moment. She detaches, looks around the room, and hisses if there happens to be a person present (she is very fond of hissing). Usually it's just the cat, so Lilah makes happy noises and says, "Cat!". The cat perceives this as an invitation and crawls into my lap as well. Lilah recognizes these advances and seizes a rare opportunity to capture the cat with very little hunting and trapping involved, so she throws her arms around Soup, chanting merrily, "Cat. Cat. Cat." I guide her back to nursing but, being my child, she willfully bucks against any guidance. "No, no no!" or "Nein, nein, nein!", depending on her mood. She writhes and wriggles and struggles to free herself and slither onto the floor. She knows full well that if she gets there, she has the advantage of crawling speedily using four limbs. I am generally stronger (both in will and physical strength) than my daughter, and she usually never reaches the ground. She shrieks unhappily for a few minutes, my milk eventually lets down, and she begrudgingly nurses for a grand total of 120 seconds on each side before deciding she can't be bothered and has a host of better things to be doing. I reluctantly release my captive and she shoots away from me as fast as she can go.

Dano witnessed these proceedings and afterwards we had a talk. Lilah will be 11 months old in one week. I had been so committed to breastfeeding her until she was a year old that I hadn't really stopped to consider her opinion in the matter. She's a baby. Don't all babies like to breastfeed until they're done with it? Aren't they done with it on their first birthday? Doesn't blowing out a single candle with the help and supervision of adults, then proceeding to smash cake into every orifice on her face trigger a response in the brain that shuts off her desire to nurse? Surely that's how it happens. Or maybe not. So for the past two days, I've been mixing some expressed breastmilk with cow's milk and giving it to her in a cup to replace her nursing sessions during the day. She's been doing exceedingly well and now only nurses when she first wakes up, before bed, and as needed for any bumps, falls, or crabbiness during the day. 

My mind takes me back 22 months to the day I found out I was pregnant. I'm reminded of the life-lesson from that day that is continually drilled into my thick, human skull (since I apparently haven't learned it well enough yet) - nothing goes according to plans. Nothing. At 18 with the determination of the young and naive, I planned to "live it up" for many a happy year and graduate college before settling down and getting married. 2 years later with rings on our fingers and a world of possibilities at our feet, Dano and I were going to be happy newlyweds, travel the globe, and have our desired degrees in hand before the thought of a baby entered our minds. 9 months later when that vile plastic test revealed a faint pink plus sign, everything shattered. During my overlong, 10 month pregnancy, I firmly planned out everything from there on out to compensate for the control some audacious, bold-as-brass little alien had taken from me. The nursery, my labor and delivery, and my due date were all planned to every last detail. However, even as a fetus Lilah had a very unladylike devil-may-care attitude. The world was her oyster and she was going to experience it however she saw fit. Dano had originally wanted to name her "Leila". After laying his head on my stomach one night after my due date, he said softly, "It's okay. We're ready for you. You're all done in there. You can come out now." His sweet little daughter kick him violently in the face. After that he thought (as I had thought from the beginning) she might benefit from a name with a bit more...spirit. In addition to the dreams I'd had about her appearance, I got a distinct feel for her personality (I was the host of her growth and development, after all). I felt she was going to be a combined effort of two stubborn people with generations of willfulness behind them. A grandfather of mine in the late 1700s was quoted telling the rebel militia, "If the captain wants me, he may come himself, and if he does, I will shoot him." That spirit has been passed on for hundred of years and is now in its full-glory in Lilah Rose. She refused to leave the womb until she heard they were coming in after her. Then she was getting the hell out of there, and on her terms, no less. All of this should have clued me in to the fact that not only life, but the very essence of my little daughter, was unexpected, surprising, and in short (to coin a word), unplannable. Why would mere breastfeeding be any different?