my big decision

I don't think most moms debate about when to stop breastfeeding the way that I did. There were quite a few reasons to continue on, but there was one really big reason to call it quits. I can't wait to eat whatever my little heart (I mean stomach) desires. I have been on a restrictive diet since November 2008 - when I found out I was pregnant and discovered that there are quite a few things that doctors recommend you cut from your diet. That's 1 year and 5 months! Cutting out deli meats, caffeine, spicy foods and certain cheeses seems pretty easy in comparison to all dairy, chocolate, caffeine, all condiments, some breads, citrus fruits, vinegar, garlic, onion, all spices, nuts, and tomatoes. Wow! How did I survive for the past six months? On Thursday, it will officially be 6 months since getting the phone call from the pediatrician instructing me to only breastfeed Claire once a day and start pumping and dumping until all the "poison" was out of my milk. It didn't take long to see a huge change in Claire, which made all of this worth it.
The following couple of months proved to be very challenging and continuing to breastfeed was something that I had to be very committed to. I'm proud of how hard I worked to keep giving Claire what was best for her, but this season in our lives is coming to an end. Once she started sleeping a little better I was able to eliminate our early morning feeding. Then she started eating a couple of meals a day and didn't need to nurse in the afternoon. At this point I was down to 2 feedings a day. A couple of weeks ago I went out for an evening and Claire got a bottle before bed. Two days later I realized that I didn't have much for her before bed and she seemed to sleep better when she had a full belly of formula before bed. This made the decision to switch to a bottle at bedtime pretty easy; leaving only one feeding a day. So far, eliminating feedings has just sort of happened, but this last one is purely my call. Yesterday, I chose the big day. Saturday, March 27 will be my last day of feeding my little girl. There's a crazy little voice inside that keeps telling me that I could keep going, but there's a much louder voice saying, "I want to eat good food!" So Saturday, I will be eating pizza for dinner. Other than dinner I plan to keep eating what I normally do so that I don't shock my body. Oh, and there's a Ghirardelli Caramel Chocolate bar that has been waiting for me.
A part of me is very sad, as I expected, but I am also very excited. Sometimes I'm a little disappointed in how breastfeeding has gone for me and Claire in general - it truly was a struggle from time to time. However, I know that I did an awesome job and sacrificed much to give my daughter the best start she could have and for that I am PROUD.