To Wean or Not to Wean

For the past 7+ months I've been dreaming of the day I could quit pumping. I started with the goal of making it 6 months, hoping I would be able to produce enough to establish a good freezer stash that could get us close to the year mark. I have been blessed with an oversupply and for the first 5-6 months my daily output was twice what Squeak was eating, and the freezer quickly started filling up. So much so, we had to go out and buy a chest freezer. So now hundreds of freezer bags later, is it enough to justify starting the weaning process?

Blessed to have enough to freeze at the end of each day!!

Despite reading from several sources that it takes 12 weeks to "establish" a supply and you should pump 8-10 times a day until the 12 week mark, I dropped to 4 pumps per day (ppd) probably around four weeks, as I noticed it seemed at the end of the day, my output was the same whether I pumped eight times or four times. I think it's also worth mentioning that I was never too worried about my supply (a pumping mom who NEVER worries even a little about her supply simply doesn't exist). I didn't/don't have anything against formula and if for whatever reason my supply tanked, there was always formula. And trust me, there have been several times I wished something WOULD happen to my supply so I could get out of having to pump. Also being able to provide [more than enough] food for my son finally made carrying these things around on my chest for 28+ years worth it!! But I digress. My average daily output was about 50 ounces, which I maintained pretty much through the six month goal. Between some hectic days around this time and feeling a little lax since I had made my goal, I dropped to 3ppd and was still producing 40-45 ounces per day. Just in the past few weeks I've dropped to 2ppd producing about 30 ounces a day, which is just about exactly what Squeak eats daily (28 ounces).

So I've been more seriously toying with the idea of weaning now in the past week or so. They (the mom's in an "exclusively expressing/pumping" group I'm part of on Facebook) always tell mom's who share with the group that they are struggling, "don't quit on a bad day," but it's so much easier to quit when it's not going well, when it feels like you're constantly having to schedule a day around the pump, when the sound of the pump is on your very last nerve, when all you want to do is go to bed but you need to pump...you get the point. I'm finding it much harder to make the decision to quit and set a date to be done. I think there's several reasons for this:

1) Feeling selfish. There are several mom's who choose to pump and desperately want to provide what is "best" for their child, but for whatever reason they can't. I know everyone has to do what works for them and for their life/circumstances, so if I feel like now is the time to be done and to ride it out to the year mark on our freezer stash, then I shouldn't feel guilty. But what makes me feel guilty/selfish is that there really isn't anything that has changed in my life to make me unable to continue to pump, I just simply want to be done.

2) Fear. Fear of the freezer stash not being as much as I think it is and running out (I should really count it). Fear of Squeak refusing the frozen milk. I've thawed about two months of the frozen and given it to him, but it's always been mixed with fresh. Fear of improperly going about the weaning process and ending up in pain (mastitis). Maybe even a bit of fear of change, a change in a routine that has worked and I've become comfortable with for the past 6 months.

3) Easy calories. Let's be serious, producing milk is an "easy" workout (20-30 calories per ounce of milk, you can do the math). My plan is to get back to doing my at-home DVD workouts once I quit pumping. I'm going to have to do some kind of workout and start watching what I eat again. BOOO!!!

With all that said, my proposed date to quit is SUNDAY, Squeak's 8 month birthday. I was good with this decision until about Wednesday. Goodness, I never ever would have imagined in a million years how hard this decision would be!!!

Squeak enjoying him some "boob juice"

More Than a Thought

I had a friend ask me the other day if I still blog, to which I replied, "Does 'thinking' about blogging count?" I guess since you all aren't mind readers, me just thinking about blogging isn't going to be very informational or entertaining.

I'm not going to be able to catch you up on all my "thoughts" in the past 4+ months, but I'll try to highlight some of them.

• Christmas in Kansas - It was our year to host, which is something we LOVE to do. Having a full, loud house is what the holidays are all about! Trenton spent several days with us, playing games and keeping Al (my dad) on his toes.

•  Helping the In-Laws Move - This actually covers the majority of the time span since my last post. They lived across the street from an elementary school, and the school decided they needed more parking and bought the three houses across the street, one of them belonging to my in-laws. Although caught off guard by the news at first, they were able to find a place in the country allowing for some down-sizing in living space and acquiring some land. It's a neat place, but it needed some updating. Between helping with the quick "flip" and moving 33+ years worth of belongings, Christmas to March was pretty much LOST in the shuffle. Hayden got his first taste of daycare and his first overnight stay during this adventure. Let's just say we have some GREAT friends. Thank you to all of our friends and family who played any role in helping take care of Hayden during this time frame! And possibly the sweetest, most memorable thing to come out of the situation was a note in my Valentine's Day card from the hubby saying his favorite thing to do is "anything beside me." I love that guy so much!!!

• Race Season 2014 - We kicked off race season March 14-15 in Beatrice, NE. The second night of racing got snowed out. I just can't understand why we have to gamble with mother nature with such early attempts at starting the season. Nebraska is just far enough north (and racecar drivers/fans are just impatient enough) that it draws several cars from Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas, and it's always easy to pick out who's from where when it gets chilly and the coats come out...turns out snowmobile jackets are fairly endemic. We were home for three days before heading out to Hays for the Sunflower Classic the following Friday-Saturday, and the Spring Fling in WaKeeney on Sunday. The motorhome was our home there for about a week, and honestly, it went really well. I am so glad we have it so we can take Squeak with us on our adventures! Both of these weekends were part of the IMCA Stock Car series that Matt promotes.

• Squeak Highlights - He's getting more and more mobile each day. He's trying so hard to crawl, but just not quite there yet. He's starting to figure out that he can continually roll and cover quite a bit of space. And just in the last week he's experimented with going from a sitting position to a "crawling" position, which currently just results in an awkward, uncoordinated transition to tummy time. He's standing beside furniture and toys now too, but I wouldn't trust him to do so without close supervision, he's pretty wobbly. I know all of this is leading to independent mobility, which is going to take mothering to a whole different level...oh boy! Just a week or so before turning 6 months old we introduced some solids << if you've seen baby food, you know that word needs to be used lightly. He LOVES him some spoon-fed meals and it's made a lot of grandparents happy to see him putting on some weight finally. He was in the two percentile (yes, two) for both height and weight at our 6 month apppointment. A week and a half ago he had his first tooth pop through his gums (bottom left), with the bottom right popping through about a week later. I'm not sure if his first ear infection a few days before the tooth coming in was related, or just coincident. Either way, neither ear infections or teething would be on the top of my list of motherhood favorites. He's quite the trooper even through all the growing pains. I love that kid so much!!!

There's some other [mostly boring] junk that has happened in the past four months, but I'll spare you the details.

Sorry for the long wait between posts, but as always, thanks for checking in on us! :)