By By Breastfeeding - Forced Early Weaning

Ahhhh so it is time I suppose. We are weaning. We tried to go the whole year with breast milk and the girls (my boobs in case your not up on mommy speak) just won't cooperate. :( My supply cut itself in half just before we went on vacation in October. I went from 12+oz a day to 6. I was just starting to recover it seemed when we went on the family vacation of doom. Well the vacation was fun but unfortunately I was unable to pump during the day and it just isn't practical to set an alarm and get up three or four times at night when you're sharing a tiny room with your husband and baby who was having trouble sleeping in the first place. So I pumped in the morning before going to the parks ( we were at Disney World) and then as soon as we got back to the hotel and again before bed. Then pumped and pumped and pumped and pumped all the way home and over the next several weeks. No go. I'm not recovering. I just couldn't understand it. Then it started to dawn on me that I had heartburn, and was SUPER tired and there might be a hormonal reason my supply dropped on it own. So the thought came- OMG I'M PREGNANT!!! SHIT! *freaks out* Lucky me the baby gods aren't paying attention to me at the moment and the heartburn was just indigestion and the super tired was cause by Nicholas going through a stage of hyperactivity, and according to Clear Blue I am not expecting another creature. Thank you baby gods! Not that I don't long for another baby, I just can't handle one right now and feel like Nicholas needs me and isn't ready to share me yet. Maybe we'll spawn again in 2011, we'll see. Back to weaning, I can't justify ordering a drug from overseas that may increase my supply - maybe, if I am lucky, because I just don't take drugs all that often for one and two it would cost money and may not work. It would cost more money to get it here in the states. I am going to have to fall back on formula. We signed up for WIC and now receive 8 cans of formula and 32 cans of baby food a month. Nicholas' doctor, who is 98% the reason I had to go from nursing to pumping and now to weaning early wrote us a Rx for Neosure, which is the formula we'd been supplementing with, so that we could get that instead of Good Start formula. I guess this is an illustration of how supplementing can interfere with breastfeeding. It starts with a bottle here and there and the baby decides the bottle is easier to drink from than mommy and then begins refusing to nurse. In just one short week of pumping to measure just how much Nicholas was eating (doctor's orders when she diagnosed failure to thrive) we totally ruined any chance of continued nursing. Nicholas would no longer nurse, and would only take a bottle. Couple this with the fact that a pump is not able to remove as much milk as a baby can from mom and we were doomed with supply problems right off the bat. Where before supply wasn't the issue it was now and now we HAD to have the supplements. Some people can adjust well to exclusive pumping and can provide all the milk and more that their babies need. Some people cannot, these people are known as poor pumpers. I fall into the poor pumper group so pumping was really really bad for my supply. It's kind of sad that the more my doctor tried to help us gain weight the worse my milk supply got. I'm not saying my doctor is a big meanie or anything. She made a bad call, though who knows if she'd ever come out and admit that? My supply was fine, lack of enough milk was not the issue with Nicholas' failure to thrive. Reflux was. Once that got under control his weight took off but the damage to the breastfeeding relationship was done. I'd never say to not follow your doctor's advice but I will say to be sure they know what the problem really is before they give you advice. I have learned a lot of things that I will not do and will not allow with the next baby, which is not on it's way right now and I've got the cramps to prove it. : p I suppose we did better than most. Some don't even try, some only make it a few days or weeks. So I'm PROUD that I did everything I could to provide the best for my baby. I will be able to look at him and know I did what I was supposed to. (sorry formula mommies if that offends you - tough). At least I have been drying up slowly this past month. I guess that makes it a little easier to take, though frustrating to watch. At least it wasn't overnight and I didn't have to go through some of the painful things like blockages and engorgement that other mommas go through. So there is that :)

So here I sit looking at the breast pump and wondering where to put it so that it will not get damaged or lost and can be ready for when I need it again.  I am also wondering if I can give it one more try... Maybe the girls will suddenly decide to get up off their worthless little asses and do their job. Unlikely... but ya never know I suppose. Maybe I'll just go have a drink... hey I could have more than one now. Ah, my evening is looking up already... oh darn... we don't have anything good to drink haha

We made it 9 months, 1 week, and 2 days. :)