What the pump.

I'm getting mighty tired of pumping breast milk. Tired of lactating in general, but having mixed feelings about when to stop. I can't believe it but Levi will be 6 months old tomorrow! When he was born, my goal was to breast feed for at least 6 months, and I hoped to do it for a year. Unfortunately Levi has never nursed well and despite the coaching of some wonderful lactation consultants, breast feeding for me has meant attaching this ungodly device up to my chest and allowing it to milk me like a cow five or six times a day. It is significantly uncomfortable to use, a hassle to clean, annoying to have to haul around every where with its many tiny parts. It is cumbersome, restrictive, and decidedly unsexy. I have to get up an extra half hour early in order to pump, I have to plan the activities of my day around pumping. If I don't pump every few hours, my boobs get huge and start to ache in this crazy bursting way. Not too long ago I stopped getting up at night to pump because the tiredness hurts more than the burstiness. Now I wake up in some agony every morning until I can get the thing on.

I pump in the car and am pretty sure that strangers in big trucks have often been able to see right in when stopped at a stop light. I'm always afraid I'll get pulled over and have to explain myself. I've pumped in the window seat on an airplane (not a full flight). I've pumped in restaurant bathrooms, friends' guest bedrooms, parking lots, and drive through windows. I pump about 40 ounces of milk a day (that's two starbuck's "ventis"). Levi drinks about 30 or 35 ounces a day, so I've been slowly building up a freezer's worth of surplus, which for some reason I am very proud of.

Levi recently started eating a little bit of cereal with his milk. His first food that is not made by my body. Until this point I have enjoyed the idea that Levi's little body is made and nourished entirely by my own. For a little while, I was losing weight at the same rate that he was gaining. I was down a pound for every pound he gained, and it seemed like I was directly transferring quantities of my body to his. Feeding him anything other than breast milk, or stopping pumping, feels like the next step of separation between mother and baby. It's not that I think that my bond with him will be diminished in any way when I stop pumping, but stopping breast feeding is another marker of the time that has passed since he was born. I'm having a hard time with how fast everything is moving, how quickly he is growing and changing. Shayne and I got pregnant immediately when we decided to try. The pregnancy itself flew by, and now the first half year of his life is gone! So as much as I complain about pumping (and I do complain) I find myself reluctant to stop because I don't yet feel ready for another whole stage to be in the past. I want to hold onto this time a little longer.

Anyway. What the pump.