6 months of Breastfeeding!

 I'm not very good at many things. Like making dinner. Which I burn and fail at many times. Poor Matt often goes hungry. I can't sew to save my life. I'm dangerous when using a knife to cut things. I'm surprise I haven't accidentally cut my finger off yet. My driving is terrible. People fear for their life when riding in the car with me. But with all the things that I'm terrible at or just don't stick with, (Like trying to lose weight, or vow to do a 100 situps a day) breastfeeding is actually one thing I can proudly say I have stuck with despite the many obstacles I've faced with it. It makes me feel wonderful to know that I'm responsible for providing AMAZING nutrition for my child and helping him grow. I may suck at most things I do, but at least I'm pretty good at breastfeeding. (If there is such a thing as being good with breastfeeding) I mean with breastfeeding, Grant has TRIPLED his weight in the six months of his life. When he was born, he was 5 pounds and 13oz. And then he lost weight and was down to 5 pounds and 1 oz. I'm not sure how much he weighs right now, he has his 6 month appointment in a couple of weeks. But I know he is already past 15 pounds. So it's amazing to say Grant is 3 times bigger then he was when he was born, and my breastfeeding contribute to that.

I mean look how tiny he was at one point:

Such a little peanut

And now look how big Grant is:

Look at me I'm 6 months old

The growth in 6 months is mind blowing!

Grant at 1 week through 25 weeks old!

I just remember when we was first born, I was afraid to hold him, he was so tiny. And we were afraid to put him in his little rocker chair. Now he is huge in his chair. When I look at how big he has gotten it's a reassurance that breastfeeding is completely worth it!

Breastfeeding is not a walk in the park. I've gotten terrible backache from hunching over from breastfeeding. And from just sitting there for such long periods of time. I've had to visit the chiropractor to help my back out. I've learned to keep myself occupied while having those late night feedings. I've played around on Facebook and Pinterest many nights to try to keep me awake. And some nights we end up both falling asleep on the couch in the middle of a feeding. Hence another reason why my back and neck are always killing me! It's also annoying when I need to make dinner, and I need to nurse Grant instead. And I'm starving.And my boobs are huge and half my shirts don't fit me anymore. But despite the annoying things of breastfeeding, all the advantages makes those annoyance seem like nothing.

I think my biggest struggle has been the pumping and keeping up with my supply. When I was pumping and still at home, I felt like I had a pretty good supply. But then once I went to work, my stockpile eventually went down, and now I'm only pumping enough to get Grant through the day. I've been pumping for over 3 months at work now. I usually pump twice a day. But it is so hard to find time in the day to do this. I feel like it takes my productivity away. And even though there is a designated place to pump at my work, I've had a couple people walk in on me, when I thought the door was lock. (When usually it locks automatically, so either they opened it with a key, or it so happened not to be lock that day) Oh well. Good thing I work with mostly women. My supply this week has been sucking terribly. The stress of work, and everything else is making my supply drop some. Despite this I'm making it work. I'm not bound to give up considering my child now is a breastfeeding snob, and refuses to eat formula. I just started giving him baby food, and that in itself has been a chore. It's been a challenge to get him to like the baby food. Slowly but surely he is starting to like it. But when I first started giving it to him, he would make the most ridiculous faces as if I was killing him. So I'm going to continue to breastfeed. I HATE pumping. I wish I didn't have to do it. I wish I could somehow create a way for milk to pump out without having to take time to do it. Like I could walk around and do stuff and it just pumps discretely and quietly without people even noticing. If I could invent this, I would be a rich woman.

Still not liking baby food especially carrots, breastmilk is better!

I hope to make it to at least a year of breastfeeding. I've already gotten 6 months under my belt. I'm so proud of myself. It's been hard work but I'm so proud of myself with not giving up! Yah for me! And yah for my little buddy growing :)