No more breastfeeding

This is a sad and very personal blog for me to write/post. Today I fed Andrina the last of my breast milk. I had to come to a hard and painful decision to give it up for good today.

Today Andrina is 2 and 1/2 weeks old and I can't nurse her any longer. We have seen 4 lactation consultants, used a hospital-grade breast pump, helped Andrina with "finger feeding", taken herbs and prescription medication to help me produce more milk (which also made me sick so I had to stop taking it), been on antibiotics for breast infections, cracking and bleeding, and had blocked ducts. With all these problems, I kept trying to nurse my baby, but with everything that went wrong and no matter how much I tried, it just would not work for us. In the end, Andrina is taking 3 ozs of milk at every meal now and I can only produce 1 oz total each time I pump. So, with pumping 8 times a day and only producing 8 ozs of milk a day, and Andrina needing 24 ozs a day, it is all overwhelming. I am beyond exhausted: pumping around the clock, then giving Andrina a bottle, then changing her, and before I know it, it's time to pump again and I have not had any time to enjoy my baby. If this keeps up, I won't be able to remember much of her. If I could have produced more milk and Andrina could latch on, I would be a happy nursing mother. But life does not work out as we plan. So I must be content to be a happy formula-feeding mother.

This afternoon, alone with my baby, and crying the entire time, I fed my baby the last of my breast milk. I wish it didn't have to end this way.