It is a strange feeling to be fully weaned and done pumping. For the last 14 months, my entire schedule and life revolved around pumping. I couldn’t wake up or go to sleep without thinking of pumping, pump parts, or how much milk there was in the last session or in the fridge. Now that I’m completely done, it feels very strange. It feels strange to go to bed without pumping, to wake up and not have to get connected to my pump. It’s weird not to see all my pump parts sitting on the kitchen counter, to not see my pumping bra on the side of the counter, waiting to be put on for pumping. It’s almost like there’s a void that needs to be filled. My body and mind need to get used to not pumping anymore. I am free now, though “freedom” has many definitions. Pumping, something that was so much a part of my identity and reason for being in the last fourteen months, is now over. So I am still getting used to my new normal of having my breasts and body back, of being liberated of the “shackles” of my breast pump. I am trying to embrace it. And every time I look at Kaia Pookie’s face, I remember why I went on that long, arduous, intense journey, and it was all worth it. It’s now becoming a slowly distant memory now, but one that I will always remember with love.