Pumping decision made

As you know, recently I have been struggling with the balance between providing Izzy all breastmilk and being a productive employee.  The past three months of pumping three times a day at work has been HARD.  Trying to figure out times to head down to a different floor in my building to pump while balance my need to participate in meetings, events not in my building, conference calls, and getting general work done has been difficult.  I often feel like I am rushed in everything that I do and can't take the time to sit down and really work on various projects for long periods of time.  Losing almost 1.5 hours a day is tough and my work has definitely suffered.

All of your comments on my post about when to stop breastfeeding were helpful.  They made me think about whether I could think about cutting back instead of stopping completely.  I mean, what was I most frustrated about?  Nursing every couple of hours on the weekends didn't bother me; nursing at night and in the morning on weekdays didn't bother me either.  Not drinking too much wasn't a big deal and pumping or nursing prior to runs really wasn't THAT awful.  And frankly, I would really miss nursing her if I stopped all together.  I realized that the biggest problem with exclusively breastfeeding was the damn pump during the work day.  I also realized that maybe I shouldn't think of my decision as being an all or nothing decision. I mulled over dropping down to two pumping sessions a day and whether that would work and make me happier- and I have decided to try that.

I talked CP about dropping a pumping session and supplementing with formula. It turns out that he was simply against me stopping breastfeeding because I beat it into his head prior to Izzy's birth that when breastfeeding got hard, I needed him to motivate me to continue and for him to support me.  I meant for him to do that in the early days of breastfeeding when it hurt- not six months into breastfeeding (but kudos to him for listening and doing his job)!  Once we got over the miscommunication, he was on board with whatever I wanted to do and liked the idea because it still meant that Izzy was getting breastmilk, and thus, the benefits of breastmilk.

Izzy turned six months last week and I talked to her doctor about supplementing with formula if I didn't produce enough after dropping a pumping session during the week.  He gave suggestions on formula- surprisingly, he did not recommend organic formula (not tested as much as regular formula and he thinks it was brought to market too quickly with a different formulation). With CP's blessing and the realization that Izzy would still  be getting plenty of breastmilk each day, I started pumping twice a day while at work this week.  

Before I got too far and couldn't get back my supply once it dropped, I had to make sure that Izzy would even eat formula. On Monday night I opened up the formula samples sent to me right before Izzy's birth. My doctor didn't recommend one over the other so I decided to try the Similac brand because they had four 2oz ready-made bottles in the box. I put the provided nipple on the bottle, took a deep breath, and proceeded to feed Izzy her first taste of formula. Turns out, she housed the 2oz. It was quite an impressive chug- and also the reason that we still have her on Level 1/Newborn nipples- with her parents' chugging backgrounds she needs a lower-flow nipple. ;-)  It felt weird to be feeding her something other than my breastmilk...but it also felt a bit freeing in a way.  Now that I knew that she would eat formula, I no longer had to worry about if my supply drops in the future for any number of reasons (including my monthly visitor). 

Yesterday was the first day I mixed formula in with her breastmilk bottles for daycare. It ended up being about 1-1.5oz of formula added to 3oz of breastmilk. I assume I will have to continue to do this and maybe supplement more as time goes on and my body adjusts to the 2 pumping sessions at work (today I didn't have to supplement at all). I'm not sure how it is going to work on the weekend when I nurse on demand...she may just need to have a bottle of formula in the middle of the day.  For right now though, she is nursed three times a day and gets 4 bottles during the week, so more than 80% of her calories is coming from breastmilk if I continue to only need 4oz of formula a day.

I'm sure that I will eventually be 100% fine with this decision.  If I had a friend that had the exact same situation I would support her in her decision to supplement and drop a pumping session.  It's silly that I am beating myself up about this because my daughter will thrive either way. I fully intend to keep nursing at least until she hits 9 months old, hopefully until she hits a year....but may need to supplement more as I get closer to those milestones.

*sigh*