vampire bunny

I woke up a couple of mornings ago and felt like an elephant had stomped on my neck and back. I could hardly roll over on my side or up to sitting. Uma, in her usual style, started pouncing on me in her Tiggerish way, trying to nurse.
I thought I was going to die.
That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it hurt enough and felt scary enough for me to ask for help right away. There was a moment of clarity that dawned that this nursing business is starting to really overextend this little body of mine.

It's been eighteen months of breastfeeding about twenty times a day (thats a fair average). Hmm, that's about 11,000 nursings AT LEAST. Now that she's about 27 pounds and quite squirmy, it's a bit extreme, this nursing business. In fact, I consider myself an extreme breast feeder. I've fed that girl in the most diverse of environments, juggling 101 other things, all while being somewhat discreet. I nurse while dancing in dance class, while grocery shopping, on the beach with her covered in sand, in the library, in my classroom filled with kids, at weddings and funerals, pretty much anywhere.

So, I've been feeding like someone in a Dr. Suess book...
(in a tree, on my knee,
at the shop, doing the lindyhop)
Plus all the toting ( and it's a lot of toting) and times twisting in and out of the car seat, I'm actually pretty damn lucky that I've been in good shape until now.

Thankfully, I live with two body workers, who both put their hands on me after I woke up in shock. Later in the day I had two other friends do their healing style on me as well. Each person totally helped me in their unique way, but the next morning I still felt like I was hit by a Mack Truck.

I decided to put an emergency call into my friend's office that has massage, acupuncture, and chiropractry. Thank God they said they could fit me in that day, and luckily I was able to find someone to watch the little muffin while I got worked on. It was incredible. I received a deep massage, some very well placed and intense needles, and each vertebrae was cracked back into place. It was clear I needed the work. The doc said he could see how much I've been drained from nursing and that it was probably time to stop.

I was actually very relieved to hear some confirmation on this. I have felt drained. I sometimes call Uma the Vampire Bunny because she's so damn cute but she sucks the life out of me.
I imagine the first thing is to do is just start cutting back the amount of feedings. After the night weaning, our daytimes have been nonstop marathon feedings."NUK NUK NUK NUK NUK" all day long. She has teeth breaking left and right, and it feels at bit wrong to wean as it's the only thing that makes her feel okay.
Ahh, the quandaries of mamahood.