It was time for me to quit pumping, and I'm glad I did
by Jamie Reed posted in Parenting
It's been a week since I quit pumping. There was no real plan in place. No slowly dropping my pumping sessions. I just woke up last Sunday morning and knew it was over.
Breastfeeding did not go as I had planned, and though it was apparent early on that my journey would be a short one, I had such a difficult time deciding when to finally stop. The amount of milk I was producing at the end was, well, negligible. A good session for me had turned into maybe a little more than a tablespoon's worth, and a bad session was merely a drop or two. That last week it had become common for me to get only a few drops or nothing at all.
You may be wondering why on earth I would put myself through pumping to get such trace amounts. Honestly, I have no idea. If someone else had told me this story and said they were thinking of giving up pumping, especially considering the actual amount they were pumping, I would have said "Duh." (Well, I probably would have said something nicer than "duh," but might have been thinking it!) Hang up the pump, lady. It?s over. Clearly, it?s over.
My body knew long ago that breastfeeding wasn?t working. It played along with me though, as my brain insisted we keep trying. It probably cringed every time it saw a pumping bra, or me washing pumping parts over and over. It probably sighed deeply when it saw me suctioning out drops of milk with a tiny syringe, trying to save every single micro-drop. It tried. ...
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