Once we found out about Ezekiels cleft lip and palate when i was about 30 weeks pregnant, i had already beginning mourning my dream of breastfeeding. I had resolved to trying to exclusively pump when he born to essentially "breastfeed" that way. I began pumping about a week before labor as an attempt to collect colostrum to take with us to the hospital. Nada. When he was born, his first feeding was formula in a dr drowns specialty bottle for cleft babies (that my OBGYN specially ordered for the hospital and trained the L&D nurses how to use btw. She's a saint) I immediately started pumping with the hospital pump the nurses brought me. Every 3 hours. I only got like maybe 2ML of colostrum to give him the entire time in the hospital. My milk came in at 3 days PP. I had just felt it. So i pumped every 3 hrs while Ezekiel was eating every 2 hrs at this point and was extremely colicky due to some GI issues we had not diagnosed yet. It was stressful and demanding. I was falling asleep while attempting to pump. I was exhausted. I kept trying and trying for a few days to not even get a half oz at a time. I was putting him on breast to help produce, doing skin to skin, etc and it just wasn't happening. It was heartbreaking for me. I wanted to give my child the best thing for him and i just couldn't. I had to make the sad decision to stop to do what's best for us so i could try to get more rest and not stress as much as i already was. The stress had given me HIVES over my face. As it turns out, even if my milk supply was enough he had severe reflux and other GI issues that would make breastfeeding not ideal anyways. I wanted to share this story to let other mommas know that FED IS BEST. Its okay to formula feed. You're doing a great job. Keep on doing you.