For the last several months I've been battling with chronic bronchitis. I've been run down and unable to get well. Every time I go to see my acupuncturist, Virginia, she says, "Vicki, you've got to stop nursing. You're not going to get well until you do. Look at Emily. She's thriving. She's taking all the cream off the top. You're left with dregs. You can't keep doing this to yourself."
      "Yeah," I reply, "but I can't wean her while I'm sick. I just don't have the strength." Another time, I tell her, "Emily just started daycare. I can't ask her to make another big change right now."
      There is always a reason not to stop.
      Emily is almost two and nursing her has been a continual source of pleasure and pride. Emily is my last baby, and I've always loved the specialness and intimacy of nursing. I assumed I'd let her set the pace for our weaning, and seeing how much she loved nursing, that clearly wasn't going to happen any time soon.
      But last month, when my bronchitis came back, things started to shift for me. I was tired of being sick. I was tired of feeling lousy. I wanted my body back. Nursing didn't feel as good to me as it had before. It dawned on me that I was ready to wean Emily.
      I decided to do it slowly so Emily wouldn't be cut off abruptly. Joan and I talked it over and decided to begin at night. Emily's pattern was to start the night in a crib next to our bed. When she first woke up, she'd climb into bed next to me, and nurse several times until morning.
      We started by having Joan sleep alone with Emily for two weeks. When she woke up at night, Emily happily nuzzled into Joan's armpit and went back to sleep. She was a bit more wakeful than usual, but it wasn't a big deal. Joan said it was pretty easy.
      And it was, at first. Then I came back into our bed, armed with a soft bra and a tee-shirt. The first couple of nights, Emily seemed to adjust to my presence and went back to sleep easily without nursing. But the third night she asked to nurse, cried a fair amount, a sleepy plaintive wail which eventually dissipated into sleep.
      The fourth night, she woke up, climbed into our bed, and didn't even ask to nurse. Instead, she started to scream and cry. Her body went rigid and her limbs shook with rage. We laid next to her like bookends, witness to her grief, anguish and fury. When we tried to comfort her, she pushed us away, yelled, "NO!" and "MOVE!"
      I felt distraught, too. I was deeply aware that this was the first big loss in Emily's life, and I was the one who had initiated it. At this moment, weaning was not the natural fall of ripe fruit from a tree. It was a tearing, rending loss. Emily was inconsolable. And all I could do was be there, fully present, and not run away from my daughter's pain.
      Tonight, when it was time for our final nurse of the day, Emily asked for "Two nur-nurs." "Two nur-nurs" means she wants to nurse on one breast and play with the other. I've never liked this, but she has insisted on "two" more and more the older she's become. It's something we often struggle over.
      Since I strongly dislike the sensation of her playing with my nipple, I've limited "two nur-nurs" to nighttime. But tonight, I reached my limit there, too. As she was having "two," I realized that her touch was irritating and annoying to me. I observed myself sitting in our rocking chair, tolerating nursing. As soon as I saw that, I knew we had to stop. Nursing is a relationship between two people, and clearly this part of the relationship was no longer working for me. In that moment, I was committed.
      "Emily, I said, "You can have one nur-nur. You can pick which side, but you can only have one."
      "Two!" Emily insisted.
      "No, Emily. It doesn't feel good to me. It hurts me, and I'm not going to let you do it anymore. You can have one."
      "Nooooooo! Two nur-nurs!" She was yelling now.
      So was I: "One nur-nur!"
      "Two nur-nurs!"
      "One!"
      "Two!"
      "One!"
      "Two!"
      At this point, she was sitting straight up on my lap, facing me, perched on my knees as far away from me as she could get. She was so sleepy, she was slumping from side to side, but her voice was still emphatic. "Two nur-nurs!"
      "Emily, do you want me to rock you?"
      "NOOOO!"
      "Do you want me to hold you?"
      "NOOOO!"
      "Do you want one nur-nur?"
      "NOOOO!"
      At that moment, I could have asked her if she wanted a hundred nur-nurs and she would have screamed, "NO!" She was firmly entrenched in the "no" groove, and there was nowhere else she could go.
      As I listened to her yell, "NO! Two nur-nurs!", I softened. I thought, "This is probably one of the most significant exchanges Emily and I have ever had. I've never said "no" to her like this. She's never been this angry with me. I'm setting a big limit here; one that is hard for me to hold, and hard for her to hear. I didn't plan to do this tonight, but here we are. And right now, I have four options before me: I can continue to nurse her resentfully, harden my heart and distance myself, get mad at her in return, or open my heart to compassion and love. And the thing about it is, no one is here but Emily and me. No one is watching, and no one is going to know which one I choose.
      I took a deep breath, and went for number four.
      I felt a rush of tenderness. I was filled with admiration for Emily's commitment and determination. Here she was, the archetypal toddler, doing her thing with such gusto. Every ounce of her was saying "No!" Every atom.
      Gently, I asked the question again. "Emily, do you want to nurse?"
      This time, she let go: a ragged, teary response: "Yesh!" She latched on and nursed on her one allotted nur-nur until she fell deeply asleep.
      Cherishing her soft, heavy body in my arms, mother-love welled up in me as if from an ancient, endless spring. I couldn't help but think that something primal had shifted. We had weathered a storm together, our first of many.