Proud Recipient of the Elsie Borden Award

Nursing twins is a big job....one I wasn't sure I would be able to do. It pretty much consumes my day, with each girl eating at least 6 times. I had the same concerns every new breastfeeding mom has - will I make enough milk? Even though I was nervous about it I never let the idea of formula feeding enter my brain. The alternative in my mind was if I don't feed them, they won't eat. This is silly, I know, because I most certainly would have given them formula if I had to but I would have felt very defeated.

As it turns out my girls love to eat and apparently my body loves to feed them. They have only tasted formula once in the NICU after they were born. I wasn't able to get to them for a few hours because I was in recovery. I wasn't happy about this, but it was completely out of my hands. So then my worries shifted to January when I have to go back to work. They will be 7 months old and eating two 8 ounce bottles each while they are not with me. I have 100 days of work before summer so if you do the math that is 3,200 ounces of breast milk!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That led to the daunting task of figuring out how I could possibly pump that much when I will maybe have time to pump once when I'm teaching. I thought, ok I'll just start now since frozen milk can last 6-12 months in a deep freeze. But when would I pump since I am feeding them all day?

The girls sleep all night and so after I put them to bed at 7:30-8:00ish I am done feeding them. So I decided that I would set an alarm to get up each night at 1:00 a.m. and pump. When I started this I would get 7 or 8 ounces each time. This had me very worried as it would get me no where near what I needed. My goal was to have at least half of the 3,200 ounces by the time I go back to work so that meant pumping 1,600 ounces! 7 or 8 ounces a day would not get me there. Well, I kept at it and my girls have done the work of increasing my supply for me and last night I pumped 17 ounces in 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you who haven't breastfed that might not seem like much but it is actually some what insane. My sister says I'm a freak of nature. I literally lost a pound pumping last night! My stock pile which stays in my parents deep feeze (thanks a million for that) is nearing 500 ounces. I don't pat myself on the back very often but I'm pretty proud of this. I am going to be able to feed my girls in the best way possible for an entire year hopefully! It is the best nutritionally and it is so much easier than formula. Plus, it's free! I should get some presents from my husband for all of the money I'm saving us and all of the work he doesn't have to do feeding them! I don't think he even reads my blog so if anyone wants to suggest that to him I'm okay with it - LOL.