sweet relief. or is it sweet release? no matter. both are highly appropriate here.

there are a couple of disclaimers i need to make before getting into the meat of this post.

the first one is i'm a complete bone head. soon enough, you will find out why.

the second one is that i hold no ill opinion of women who choose to feed their babies formula. i realize there are 1,001 different situations for moms, and in a lot of them, formula is the best option for both mom and baby. you thought high school was bad? wait until you become a mom. there has never been such judgement among people who should be each other's biggest cheerleaders.

****

i am breastfeeding ellie, and it is truly a miraculous experience. the child is breathtakingly beautiful every moment of every day, but i think she is most beautiful when she is nursing. watching her tiny jaw move, feeling her little baby lips against me, hearing the sweet noises she makes when she's swallowing - it's enough to make me raise my hands and praise the Lord for his perfect design. only i don't, 'cause i'm holding the baby, you know.

well, my plan has always been to pump after i return to work so ellie can have breastmilk for as long as she wants to eat it.

i was devastated to discover that i could not pump. i have a couple of sample cans of formula in my pantry that were sent to me while i was pregnant. i couldn't even look at them without getting teary-eyed.

i would pump for 20 minutes, and only .5 ounce would come out. she eats at least 4 ounces a feeding right now, and that will only increase.

then i tried hand-expressing my milk which yeilded me about 2 ounces at a time, but that was starting to hurt.

so yesterday i decided i would try to give her a formula bottle. just to see if she would take it. i tried similac (twice), and she literally gagged, choked and spit it all back at me. then last night at the eight o' clock feeding, i gave her infamil. she sucked that down like it was the greatest thing ever.

OK. good. at least i know she will actually drink the stuff. my child will not starve to death.

so since i didn't nurse her, i decided to try to pump. again.

at dinner at joe's the other day (the wine-drinking italians time), amy and i were discussing the pumping dilemma. she told me that the lowest speed and the highest suction work the best. i told her my pump only had speeds, no suction levels.

ha.

i pulled all my stuff out, got down on the floor and really looked at the pump. it most certainly does have suction levels. i put the shields on both sides, turned the suction high and put the speed on one.

that stuff came spraying out of there like nobody's business!

i pumped 4 ounces in 10 minutes!

i was on the floor of ellie's nursery, exclaiming, and landon was wondering what in the world happened.

not only did i totally miss the suction settings, i had been putting one shield on at a time without covering up the opening for the other side.

hello!!!! it's a double pump. the suction works together on both sides. basically i'd been trying to get milk with zero suction. no wonder it didn't work.

see? bone head. ay.

well, so i cleared off a whole shelf in my freezer last night because i'm gonna fill that baby up with milk for my precious angel.

thank goodness. that is one less thing i have to break my heart when i have to leave ellie in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS to go back to work.

Lord, help me.