Feeling very sad about stopping

[Midori1999]

There's not really any reason to post, I'm not sure what I think anyone might say that will help, but I suppose I just wanted to get it all out.

I managed to BF my DD for 26 months until she self weaned during my last pregnancy, having 'failed' to BF my first three DC. After that BF my DS, who is now 11 1/2 months old, was easy and I hoped to feed him until he self weaned also.

However, I have needed breast surgery to remove a ruptured breast implant since before I was pregnant and had out that off and around 2 months ago I was diagnosed with a condition which has severe hypoglycaemia as one of the symptoms. The treatment (they think, as it is rare so they're not sure if it will work) involves immunosuppression on high dose steroids and a drug called Rituximab. Both of these medications are sadly contraindicated when breastfeeding at the doses I require. So in order to go ahead with the treatment I had to stop breastfeeding.

The condition I have is potentially life threatening, so it probably wouldn't have been sensible to put the treatment off, but I just feel so sad about it all. The last feed was about 4 weeks ago now and my DS is fine having bottles, but I miss the closeness so much and feel sad that it wasn't his decision to stop or that I didn't at least nurse him myself until he could have cows milk.

He's fine of course, so maybe I'm just being silly.

Sorry to hear you're feeling so sad about stopping but it sounds like you had no other option. It sounds like as well as stopping breastfeeding, (which I believe has hormonal effects), you have also had a tough time with your health so that can't have been easy when looking after at least two small children (you didn't say how old the others are). So overall it doesn't seem at all surprising that you are feeling low.
Just because a feeling is irrational (in the sense that you know it was the right choice) doesn't mean that it is silly.

I hope you have plenty of real life support and help and feel better about it soon.

Hi
I also stopped bfing 2 weeks ago my now 11 week old son. I managed to bf my 1st child for 4 months but struggled with technique, tongue tie and bad reflux with both of them.
All i wanted to say is that although I feel sad that i can't bf my son and would never want to minimise the feelings you have about not being able to bf, how we nourish our children is only a small part to do with breast or bottle feeding. Your love and attention and care will be what your baby needs no matter what milk they get. I hope you can be kind to yourself about this and remember that looking after your own health is vital to being a brilliant mum to your kids.