Disclaimer:  It's all about breastfeeding.  Feel free to stop reading now if it makes you uncomfortable.

I really, really wanted to breastfeed.  I'm not going to sit here and preach the benefits, because I'm pretty sure most people who care already know.  From the very beginning, formula was never an option for me.  I never considered what kind of bottles I would use, or which formula, or any of that.  I was going to breastfeed, and I would pump to build a stash so that when the time came, someone else could actually feed her.  I had my breast feeding pillow picked out, the storage system picked, the pump.. the whole nine yards.

When Katie Beth was born early, the ability to bond with her by breastfeeding within the first few hours of birth was taken away.  Oh well, things happen.  I was disappointed, but it never occurred to me that I wouldn't still be able to nurse my baby.  Well, since she was so small, that was not possible for the first few weeks, so I started pumping.  It made me feel better that, if nothing else, KB was getting my milk from a bottle.  I still fully intended to breastfeed.

Well, here we are 6 weeks later, and KB has yet to latch more than once.  The one time she did manage, she fell asleep after just a few minutes.  We've tried almost every day, and almost every day it turns into a fight.  Consider this:  Newborns eat every 3 hours.  So, at 9 am KB gets hungry and we attempt to breastfeed.  The fight here lasts about 20 minutes.  At 9:20 I stop and go warm a bottle.  That takes 5 minutes, and then KB takes about 15 to eat.  So we're at 9:40, then burping and changing take us to 9:45.  I have to get her settled back in wherever, so lets just say we're all the way to 10:00.  Now that she is settled, I have to pump to keep up the supply of milk she's getting.  That takes 20 minutes, minimum.  After I finish pumping, get the milk stored and bottles washed, etc, I'm at 10:45.  And it's time to repeat just over an hour later.  Talk about exhausting

So as of today, I've decided that I will exclusively pump.  My wonderfully loving husband bought me a crazy awesome breast pump that should make my life a little easier.  (I'm currently using a rental, which is due back this week.)  It's been really hard for me to come to terms with the fact that we won't actually nurse.  She'll still be getting all the benefits of breast milk, but I'm sad that we won't have the bond - and lets face it, convenience - of breastfeeding.

I don't know.... Maybe I should find a support group for this or something.  I feel like I'm giving up on KB, and that makes me a bad parent.  I just don't want to make myself crazy.  I'm also scared that this is some slippery slope.  Like, if I "give up" on her now, what's to keep me from giving up pumping in 2 months?  I'm pretty positive that formula would be so much more convenient than sitting down to pump for 20 minutes EVERY three hours.  That's so far from where I wanted to be, and that makes me really sad.