It's not all wonderment and roses

Pumping for the work day is becoming less effective. My milk supply doesn't seem to be really effected. I just can't seem to trigger the let-down reflex through the pump lately.

Until about a week ago I was getting between 15 and 18 oz during my 3 pumping sessions at work. Then...the pump broke. This happened on a Friday, and I wasn't back to my regular pumping schedule with the replacement pump until Wednesday.

Since then, I've been struggling to reach 10 oz a day at work. The Little Man tends to eat through 14-17 oz during the day while I'm gone. I can feel my breasts filling up. I can hand express milk. But I can't get the pump to extract it. This is creating all kinds of sadness in my head. Mostly it's mommy guilt that I can't figure out how to provide for my kid in the way I want to.

But then last night it turned into something else, too.

My husband suggested formula, which I'm not opposed to in the event I really can't pump enough to make it through the last week of work. But that's not what he was talking about. He was talking about having formula so that when I'm "not in the mood" to nurse, or when I want some "alone time" he can take over feeding. What really gave me a case of the sads was when he said that he knows he can do 100% of the childcare during the day, but that I need to breastfeed when I get home...and that he wishes he could have the security of knowing that he could provide 100% of the childcare while I'm home.

He confided that he feels jealous when I come home from work and the Little Man ignores him to play with me. He says he feels guilty when I'm home and the Little Man gets hungry and he can't whip up a bottle and feed him.

Whether it's rational or not, my brain went straight to "You want to make me irrelevant." He wants to be able to care for the kid 100% even if I'm home? He's jealous of the alone-time that the Little Man and I get after my long day working? And now he's suggesting that I take some "alone time" in the evenings when he can take over the one job that only I can do?

I feel like he's calling me a lazy mother for every once in a while feeling frustrated that the Little Man wants to nurse when I'm in the middle of something else. I feel like he's trying to break up a special connection I have with my son. I feel like he's trying to head off any reason the boy might have to stay with me if things were to not work out.

I know none of that is true, but it's still hard to hear. And it makes me all the more upset that I haven't been able to pump as much as I could in the past. If I were able to maintain my stash then there would be no reason to buy any formula. I'd be guaranteed to not become a superfluous parent.