I've always been a crier. Angry, excited, happy, frustrated....regardless of the emotion, once it hits a certain level - I cry. In the soundtrack of my life, the music would be full of those moments when the music swells.

At times that's been something that frustrated me, especially when I was angry. Nothing ticked me off more than to be angry and have tears well up in my eyes, and along the way I learned some tricks including one in a seminar about women in business. The speaker suggested if you find yourself in a situation where you feel you're going to cry but it just isn't something you can allow to happen, drink a glass of water as fast as you can. It's really hard to cry while you're drinking water.

Which means I must have spent the last several months drowning.....because there have been times I've kept waiting for the floodgates to open and found myself shocked not to be crying. Matter of fact, there have been many monents over the last year that I shocked myself by not sobbing. Maybe it was shock? Self-defense? I don't really know...because it's not that the emotions haven't been there. Prior to this, the only time I didn't cry when I fully expected to was my wedding .....and that was because EVERYONE expected me too and I was trying so hard to hold it together. Though my voice did waiver, my eyes did fill with tears...but I wasn't the gooey mess everyone expected.

I'm almost sorry I didn't open up betting among my friends and family for when my breakdown might occur. It might not be too late. Some might have expected it to happen after my first surgery, or the second, or when I broke my foot this summer. Possibly when I discovered it is still broken? Or when we bought a house? Figured out we're going to owe WAY more on taxes than we thought?

I thought for sure I was going to lose it when I got the diagnosis of Interstitial Cystitis recently, and the accompanying news that it's a forever condition. That they want me on a three times a day medication that won't even start helping for 3-6 months. That it can cause debilitating pain at times, and that part of it just might not go away...and in the meantime I'm on a special diet to figure out what my triggers are...and so far they are some of my favorite things. Like REALLY spicy food. But no, that didn't do it.

Neither did the discovery that I have tons of scar tissue in my urethra from Joseph's birth - scar tissue that should have come to their attention every time I had a catheter after his birth. I had a procedure this week that will need to be repeated three more times and it is excruciatingly painful.

No, the thing that might just do me in is probably the one that most people around me will not understand at all. After my procedure I was given a medication high in salicylates, which happen to be boldly marked on my chart as something I'm very allergic to. I've been having to take benadryl until it gets out of my system and pump and dump milk until it's gone.

Pumping hasn't been working, I haven't been able to pump ANYTHING and I chalked it up to stress, reaction to the medication, etc and then it hit me.....I've been taking benadryl. An antihistamine that can dry up a milk supply in no time flat. I may have just weaned my son without even realizing it, and while I know logically that my first responsibility was to take care of myself, I will be devastated if this is the thing that brings a complete end to nursing.

Most people around me won't understand what that means to me, and if I tell them I'm upset about it most will blow it off. I'm sure to hear things like "well, he is about to turn a year old..." or "that's what formula is for..."

They won't understand that it has been a point of pride for me that through all of this I've still been able to nurse my son, that it is one of the few things in his first year that I don't feel was taken away from me. That infertility and illness have left me feeling broken and betrayed, and nursing was a case of my body NOT letting me down.

I'm sitting here, sobbing, and feeling like very few people are going to understand why I feel so broken hearted. I wondered when the tears would start, but right now I'm worried about whether they will stop. People in my life have said I've been strong through this, they don't know I've held it together, etc.

The thing is, I don't feel strong, I don't feel as if I've held it together. I feel very weak, completely overwhelmed and discouraged and as broken apart as one can be.