Goodnight Mom

  On August 7th, I put Max down for his morning nap, grabbed my breast pump and sat on the sofa. I looked at the pump and suddenly was filled with dread. I really didn’t want to do this again. It was such a drag to sit there for 20 minutes for the smallest amount of milk. Such a bore, so much effort. Was it really worth it to keep going? At this point, for a number of reasons, I had stopped nursing Max and was only pumping twice a day. I wasn’t getting much milk. Every two days I had enough to feed him a full bottle. I was over it. It didn’t feel worthwhile. I started to cry. It was so hard to give this up, even at this scaled back point. I realized that I wanted to, so badly, but I felt immense guilt over not giving Max breastmilk for at least the first 6 months of his life. It brought up all the pain I experienced in the first few weeks (months in fact) of his life when I realized I wouldn’t be able to fully breastfeed Max. I texted my friend, my mom and my sisters for support. They