Happy Valentines Day

I have survived 9 and a half months of nursing. If you have no clue what that means, then let me enlighten you....

• 9.5 months of constant worry about milk supply. 
• Painful pumping. 
• Milk blisters. 
• Dealing with a baby who wouldn't take the bottle when I went back to work, no matter how hard we tried. 
• Discovering that my milk tastes metalic/soapy because I have excess lipase. 
• Having to scald my milk at the office after every. single. pumping. session. 
• Having to deal with co workers asking awkward questions about me scalding my milk. 
• Having my milk messed with in the employee refrigerator, or worse, the fridge being so full that there is no room to put my pumped milk. 
• Having co workers, supervisors, and management constantly asking me when I'll be done pumping (for good), or making comments to the tune of, "I bet you'll be glad when you don't have to do that anymore!" or "why don't you just switch to formula." as if feeding my child should be something everyone else has a right to comment on. 
• Being walked in on by male co workers while pumping multiple times (even with a sign on the door, and a scheduled pump time/private office). 
• Pumping with a manual hand pump, in the bathroom at work, by candle light during a power outage because there were no places to pump with a window that were private. 
• Having to wait over 4 hours to pump at work while engorged because there were no rooms available to pump with everyone in meetings. 
• Having to pump in a warehouse bathroom that hasn't been cleaned in over a year. 
• Having to wash my pump equipment in ice cold water at work because our sink doesn't have hot water. 
• Having to wake up every 45-90 min a night for months on end because she won't eat enough from the bottle to sleep through the night without waking up hungry. 
• Marathon nursing. 
• Biting. 
• Scratching, clawing, twisting, chewing. 
• Leaking in public. 
• Being given dirty looks in public for nursing. (even with a cover!) 
• Fighting my infant to remain covered while nursing.... she won't eat when I try to cover her. 
• Having to ask for places to nurse privately. 
• Having strangers stare at me while nursing privately in my car, as if they need to watch someone feed their baby and don't know how to mind their own business. 
• 9.5 months of feeling like a milk machine. 
• 9.5 months of feeling worried that the milk will dry up. 
• 9.5 months of being lucky enough to provide the one food on the planet designed for my baby to eat without having to supplement a single drop of formula. 
• 9.5 months of giving her the calories from my own body, and not being able to diet to "get my body back." 
• 9.5 months of giving her love, on demand, day and night, because I would have done all the above a million times over for her. That is the love of a mother. 

Happy Valentines day to all the nursing mothers around the world! May you be able to nurse as long as your heart wishes, and your baby needs!