The End is Here

My frozen milk stash has been depleted. There is enough for Monday, but Tuesday is doubtful. If I pump a few ounces each day this weekend then I might have enough for Tuesday. I don't pump on the weekends anymore, so it looks like Samantha will be trying formula Tuesday. I don't know how she'll like it. I'm hoping she likes it enough to drink it but not so much that she starts refusing breastmilk.

I have been dreading the day that I'd have to supplement. Formula is evil. Well, not necessarily evil, but first and foremost, formula companies are out there to make a buck. I hate that I now have to give them my money. But on a positive note, look how long we've gone without supplementing. When she was four months old, I was looking for a job and knew that I would be going back to work soon. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pump enough. Around that time, she went through a growth spurt and was drinking 7 oz bottles. My output was pretty meager compared to that. Honestly I figured I would run out of frozen milk within a month or two. But her appetite settled back down to 4-6 oz bottles and that helped me out. I was able to stay ahead of her up until now. I am proud of these ten months.

I might try making up a couple ounces of formula for her to try this weekend. I'm not sure what the best delivery mechanism will be. I'd like to have her weaned off a regular bottle by 12 months, so I don't know if I should start that just to stop it in a month or two. She isn't doing that great with the sippy cups yet (we have a few different styles which just confuses her), but she expects those to taste like milk, not formula. She didn't like when the sippy cup had water or juice in it. I have let her drink out of my water glass. We get all wet, but she likes it. That would probably be too messy for anything other than water. That isn't a feasible solution for daycare. I'll probably try one of the sippy cups. Yucky formula. Those LLL women have brainwashed me! I better not tell them next week at the Ohio LLL conference that I am supplementing.

Blockage

Samantha started crying around 2 am. It only lasted about 30 seconds. Must have been a bad dream. She fell back asleep, but I was awake, so I decided to go pump. The right side felt fuller, so I started there first. The lumpiness was a bad sign. After pumping until nothing came out anymore, the lump still remained. Argh. Clogged duct. Not today! Tuesdays are my day to travel to Norwalk to check on my waterline construction project. Any other day of the week and I would probably be able to keep her home with me for a day of nursing. I've had a clogged duct a couple times before and pumping does an unsatisfactory job of clearing the blockage. A baby is the best pump out there when nursing issues arise.

As Joe would put it, tonight is my "boob meeting". La Leche League is more than seeing women's naked breasts. It's about seeing real life examples of moms that are weirder than I am. While I am no lactivist, I do feel that every baby should be breastfed. LLL is a little more extreme. My meeting has a couple moms that are still nursing two-year olds and one of them is going to try tandem nursing after she has another baby later this year. To me, that's weird and not something I'm comfortable doing myself. To each her own. Oh, and if this clogged duct hasn't disappeared, then I can talk about it with the other women. Maybe one of them will have a solution I don't know about.