End of an Era

I’m struggling today.  I made the decision last night to stop pumping for Charlie.  I’ve been working towards this for several weeks now but last night made the difficult decision to call it quits.  When I was pregnant, I never imagined weaning would be solely my decision.  I expected to have Charlie’s help and be able to follow his lead.  Instead, it came down on me.  And although I’m feeling a lot of guilt and sadness today, I know that will pass and I will get to enjoy the extra time with my family. 

When Charlie was born, my dreams of nursing took a backseat to his immediate health concerns.  We started “finger feeding” Charlie in the hospital but when Charlie was readmitted for light therapy for jaundice, the pediatric hospitalist was against this approach and said she would not discharge Charlie until he was either bottle feeding or nursing, despite the fact that his weight was stable.  Being overwhelmed at the moment, we gave Charlie a bottle of fortified breast milk so we could take him home.  Despite working with several different lactation consultants over the course of the next 8 weeks, it just wasn’t working.  I was devastated but wanted to do the next best thing and make sure Charlie continued to drink my milk, even if not in the way I dreamed of feeding him.  And here we are, 9 and a half months later.  I’ve pumped in airports and on airplanes, in moving cars and parking lots.  I’ve washed more bottles than I can to count and spent hours measuring, storing and freezing milk.  And I’d do it again.  My happy, thriving baby still has 450 six ounce bags of milk in the deep freeze – it should be enough to see him to his first birthday. 

  

Resources on exclusively pumping are lacking and lactation consultants don’t always seem to know what to tell moms.  I wanted to post here so that others would know that it is possible to exclusively breastfeed your baby even if he never latches.  Here are some of the helpful tidbits:

• These Medela Pump and Save bags are nice because you can pump directly into them and save yourself from a little bottle washing BUT they don’t freeze flatly so if you’re pumping a lot and plan to freeze a lot, don’t use these.  I love the Target Up and Up brand bags.    

•  I credit this video to my successful pumping experience and stellar supply.  There are a lot of other great resources on this site.  http://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/MaxProduction.html

• Get a good pump.  They’re expensive but now insurance companies often cover them.  I used this one.    http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/573/pump-in-style-advanced  I literally burned one out and Medela’s amazing customer service overnighted me a brand new one.  
  

• KellyMom.  THE best online resource for all things breastfeeding.  They even have a special page for pumping.  http://kellymom.com/category/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/

               

I could go on and on about the logistical things but what I’ve learned most from this experience is that we need to do what is best for our children, ourselves and our situations and not judge the choices others make for their families.  We’re all doing the best we can within our circumstances and we need to forgive ourselves when things aren’t the way we imagined they would be.