I cannot tell you all how much I needed all those replies. THANK YOU!!
First, I absolutely would continue breastfeeding even if/when I stop pumping. (I love the curling up together after work idea - we do that on weekends, long nap and nurses which are lovely, though sometimes hard to do with the 2 1/2 year old running around in the background : )
Second, I definitely will look into renting a better pump before calling it quits.
But mostly, I have just turned my whole attitude about this around. Instead of feeling like a failure and worrying all the time, I've decide to look at whatever I produce as a blessing. (as some of the earliest responses pointed out, it's tough to keep it up and it's ok to struggle, i spent too much energy wondering what was "wrong" with me) I was very intrigued by the idea that I might actually be pumping plenty! Or at least enough. And today I asked the nanny to limit my daughter's afternoon milk feeding so that she's hungrier when I come home and so that we can conserve a bit more on milk. And I think that will be just fine.
So I feel great now!!! Yay!! (Am I the only one out there whose mood is directly correlated with whether it's a good pumping day or bad pumping day?)
(And I also have started emailing my husband every time I pump with the # of ounces and a running total for the day. Might sound weird but when my hours started getting really long I asked him to take charge of cleaning, assembling, what-have-you my pump set up every night so that we could share the breastfeeding burden a bit and invariably he forgets some or all of the task one night a week, typically coinciding with the morning that I've overslept and have 15 min to pump, shower, dress and catch my bus. (I go to bed well before him and only discover this at 4:30 in the a.m.) My original post came on such a morning and I therefore had to skip the 4:30a pumping session and was seething and feeling totally alone in this endeavor. I realized that so much of my breastfeeding life (and therefore daughter's nutrition) goes on behind the scenes for him now and it makes it harder for him to appreciate the import of not derailing my pumping situation. So it's annoying to get 5 emails a day on this subject but a hell of a lot less annoying then standing around in an office closet with bare bosoms every 3 hours! And hopefully he will appreciate more how much effort goes into this thing than when he just gets the end of day digest up date ; )
