Let me start this by giving major props to all moms who are breastfeeding and/or exclusively pumping, it’s a lot to handle mentally and physically and you all are amazing!

I’m officially trying to pump again. I took a little break- really for my mental health, I decided to start again because I got my Covid booster and want my baby to get antibodies to build her immune system- also recommended by her pediatrician. I honestly had a really difficult time with accepting that I needed to stop pumping, and actually stopping. I was exclusively pumping and I really enjoyed it at first, I still have a decent freezer supply that we use, then two things came up that made me slowly start to change my mind. First- and don’t come after me for this- my husband did a bit of research and told me that my marijuana use needed to stop for the safety of the baby. I was also feeling a lot of pressure to constantly pump every 2-4 hours, but felt like I had no support and almost strapped to my pump. I put all of that mentally on myself and I had to work through that to come up with a solution. I had stopped smoking when I was pregnant (obviously) and was looking forward to being free to smoke at least a little bit at night to relax after birth. When my husband realized that my daughter would have it in her system by drinking my breast milk and if she were to be tested, we could be reported and she could be taken away from us, he told me I either needed to stop smoking and keep EP, or I could keep smoking, stop pumping and we would start using formula. Now that I’ve had about a week of not pumping on a schedule- also not smoking, and I’ve ordered a momcozy to help with pumping so much, I’m going to give it another try. We’re still going to supplement with formula because it’s been going well, but I’m hoping that getting this new pump will help, and if it doesn’t, then I can stop again and I don’t think I’ll feel guilty. I’m not getting as much milk out so far, but I still feel good that I’ll be able to give my daughter some antibodies from the booster and mentally feel better about the possibility of stopping again.