Reflections on Breastfeeding

As I sit here in my usual spot on the couch, I am reminded of all the times over the past 8 months I have sat here to breastfeed or pump. It's hard to believe I've been at it for 8 months now. I am just 9 days shy of quitting the pump until the next baby. I'm a bundle of mixed emotions at this point, and I really didn't think I would be.

I started out nursing my son. He was an awesome nurser, we were so lucky that we never had any latch problems. The only issue we had was he would fall asleep every time, so nursing would take on average 45 min. Those first couple of weeks I was operating on zero sleep. My son would cluster feed every night from 10pm-6am, waking every 90 min, and taking 45 min to nurse. We were all exhausted, so at that point I started pumping during the night while my husband would feed my son a bottle of breastmilk. When we started that, my son would sleep for 3hr stretches, which was wonderful.

About the 2.5 week mark I had to begin pumping my left side due to a crack and only nursed on my right. My right was the lazy side, so after nursing for 20 min on the right, we would have to give a bottle of pumped milk to finish off the feeding. Throughout all of this, my son decided he liked the bottle more, so I started exclusively pumping. I pumped every 2 hrs during the day, and every 3hrs at night. It was exhausting, but my supply took off...took way off. At 3 weeks old I developed mastitis on the left side, and in order to clear the clog and get better I was able to get my son back on to nurse. He did wonderful, and I thought maybe we were back on track. My long term plan was to nurse while at home, and pump while at work. This new found nursing lasted about 7 days. My son started screaming and pulling off everytime I would have a letdown. My biggest mistake was not calling my Lactation Consultant. Had I called her, I would have discovered that I had an overactive letdown and an oversupply. I, however, decided that exclusively pumping and bottle feeding breastmilk was the best way for us to go.

I have been exclusively pumping since my son was 4 weeks old. I have a love/hate relationship with my pump. For the longest time, I was pumping 55-65oz/day, with a record day of 73oz. We had to go out and buy a separate deep freezer and the day it got delivered I moved my milk from our regular freezer down to the deep freezer and it was immediately fully. I slowly began cutting out pumping sessions, but my supply never really decreased. I got down to 48oz/day and stayed there until about 6 months. At that point I cut back to only pumping 4x/day. I was still getting about 42oz/day, so by month 7 I cut back to 3x/day. Once I did that, my supply started to drastically change. I was down to about 28oz/day, and there were days where I was lucky to even produce what my son was eating (24oz/day).

So, that's what brings me to this post. At 8 months old, I now have 4 months (maybe more) frozen between my deep freezer, daycare's deep freezer, and my regular freezer. I am barely producting what my son eats. In 9 days I will put my pump away until the next baby. I thought I would be so happy about this. I remember thinking how I couldn't wait to stop pumping. It was such a pain, such an inconvienience. Well, the day is almost upon me and I am devistated. It makes me so sad that my son has grown so fast, right before my eyes. I feel as though he doesn't need me anymore. I know that's not the case, but it's how it feels. I know what I have done is amazing, and it's such a great accomplishment. I am so proud of myself for sticking it out, through the tough times. I just hope my story provides hope and encouragement for expecting moms or new moms out there.