Why I can't just skip a day

My boss comes back from his paternity leave tomorrow. As is customary at my company when someone goes away for an extended period of time, we took this opportunity to trash his office. We've already put diapers all over his desk and are now working on blowing up tons of balloons full of confetti. I was having so much fun just hanging out with my teammates. But now they're still hanging out and I'm alone in the pump room, doing what I gotta do.

As I mentioned in my last post, finding time to pump is a constant challenge, particularly when I have to work outside my home. Since I do work from home for the majority of the time, where finding time to pump is relatively easy, you might ask: "So, why don't you just pump on the days when you work from home, but pump significantly less (or not at all) on days like today, when you have other things you'd rather be doing?"

There are three reasons why I can't do this:

1. Littles needs to eat tomorrow. Usually, the milk I pump one day gets put in Littles' bottles the next day. No pumping today = no milk for tomorrow.
   
   It might surprise you to hear that this is the least important reason for pumping regularly. See, I have a stash of frozen milk that I can fall back on if I need to. (Milk lasts for 3-6 months in the freezer.) Right now, my stash is up to over 100 ounces, which is enough to meet all of Littles' milk needs for a couple of days. So if I don't pump today, I could always use frozen milk tomorrow.
   
2. It hurts! Even if I know that I'm not going to pump (or nurse) today, there's no way to get that message to my breasts. They'll just keep right on making milk until they're so uncomfortably full that I can hardly focus on work. This lovely condition is known as "engorgement." If it gets really bad, I could actually get mastitis, which is a very painful breast infection that can even lead to hospitalization if it gets bad enough.
   
   Again, this isn't a super-important reason. It's annoying, but if I've played multiple lacrosse games on very recently-sprained ankles, I can handle a few hours of engorgement. And luckily, I'm not too prone to mastitis, so even a full workday of not pumping probably will not land me in the hospital.
   
3. It affects my milk supply. Ah. Now this is the big reason.
   
   See, breastfeeding is a demand-supply system. Littles (or the pump) demands milk. My breasts supply more. Simple.
   
   Well, if I go for a day without nursing or pumping, my breasts will think, "Oh, we don't need to make milk anymore. Let's stop doing that." Not good.
   
   This is exactly what happened to me just before Christmas. First, I caught a stomach bug, which dropped my supply (very common during illnesses). I had just recovered from that when I launched into a two-week period where I spent a total of 5 days onsite with customers. Due to the problems I described in my last entry, this meant that I wasn't able to pump as much as I needed to..
   
   Consequently, my milk supply dropped. In the days before we left for Christmas, I was pumping about 10-12 oz a day, while Littles was eating 15-20 oz. I did have that freezer milk, so she didn't starve, but my freezer stash was rapidly dwindling and I was afraid that I'd need to supplement with formula soon -- or even switch to using it exclusively.
   
   Luckily, we had a 12-day break over Christmas and New Years where I breastfed Littles exclusively. Things were a little touchy for the first day or two, when my supply was still low, but my breasts quickly figured out that they needed to make more milk and everything was fine.
   
   When I came back from vacation and started pumping again, I went from struggling to pump 10-12 oz/day to easily pumping 20+ oz/day.
   
   At that point, I recommitted to breastfeeding/pumping and knew I had to work harder to keep my supply up. That's when I launched into my crazy schedule of pumping 4 times a day. I also carefully track all of my pumping sessions, along with Littles' consumption, in an Excel spreadsheet. This allows me to quickly spot supply drops. For example, I've been in our office all this week. Since I have to drop Littles off and pick her up (my husband is out of town), and my office is about a 1-hour bus/subway ride away, that leaves me only around six hours of actual working time. So I've only been able to pump twice during the workday. On Monday and Tuesday, I pumped over 20 oz. Yesterday, it was down to 12.75 oz. If this trend continues, I'll know I have some work to do to get my supply back up.

So no, I can't just skip a day of pumping. It does take a lot of commitment to stick with this working/pumping thing. In my next entry, I'll talk about why it's so important for me to stick with it.