i am currently..... well you guessed it. pumping. seems like that's the only thing i do these days. why you ask? because my baby has zero patience when it comes to direct breastfeeding. never thought mh breastfeeding journey would end up like this. heck never thought i would even have one. before i had her, i never really had a plan on breastfeeding. never researched about it. all i know is, if i dont have enough milk, i'll be formula feeding her, and its going to be as simple as that. boy i was wrong. the first week was a tough one. she kept falling asleep because she of her jaundice. she was admitted at the hospital without me, and while in confinement, my mom didnt really want me going back and forth to the hospital just to breastfeed. so i had to pump. i couldve just asked the nurses to feed her formula. but im not sure what it was. i felt like i was responsible to provide milk for her. everyone has milk. plenty especially during the early days. you just have to understand and educate yourself about breastfeeding. i had a bad experience with the a&e doctor when we went back to the hospital to check on her jaundice level. i was so stressed and felt like i dont have a choice but to bottlefeed her because he made it seem like i wasnt doing things right. first mistake there. i was a rookie. i didnt know better and i was scared so i decided to bottlefeed her. and everything went downhill from there. she prefered bottle from then on. i was really really depressed and felt rejected. had no choice but to feed her expressed milk. the thing about exclusively pumping is, you get the ugliest part from formula feeding and the ugliest part from breastfeeding. you need to pump and feed. where as with breastfeeding you can feed straight away and with formula feeding, you wont need to spend that extra half and hour each session to pump. i had to pump 9 times a day to mimic a baby's feeding schedule. and i was just getting enough. three months later, still getting just enough. with direct breastfeeding, babies will do the job of removing milk and they will also automatically increase supply by staying on the breast longer. i was pretty discipline but my supply is still just that. maybe im not compatible with the pump. im not sure. we met with a lactation consultant when my baby was a month plus. a very nice doctor. she guided me on how to get her back to breast. i tried for almost a week. but realized that my supply dropped. maybe she wasnt removing milk effectively and i didnt pump at all that week. i was lucky i had a small stash of frozen milk. and from then on, i was so scared of not pumping or trying to get her back to breast because i really dont want to make less than what she's drinking. so now here i am. still making just enough with 6 pumps per day. i pump from 10am to 12 am everyday and if i can, i would squeeze in another pump or two. 30-40 minutes each session. i just hope that my supply will some how increase so i wont be as stressful as i am now
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