Home Again

We dodged the glenn bullet one more time.  The diet change seems to have solved Livie's little problem.  It's added different "problems" however.  Basically, I've decided to give up pumping.  I have so many mixed feelings about this decision.
First, here's why I'm giving it up.  A. Pumping has been extremely stressful for me and while my milk supply has been stellar even with only pumping two-three times a day I dread having to do it.  B.  Livie recently stopped latching with our non-nutritive nursing practice.  I'm sure there are plenty of things I could do to work with her on it but that's just one more thing to stress about.  And if she's not ever going to nurse, there's a lot of incentive gone for pumping.  C.  I would have to give up dairy.  When the WIC lactation specialist was trying to guilt me into continuing she said I'd only have to give up milk and that yogurt, cheese etc. were fine.  That's bull.  I haven't had any milk to drink in a couple weeks because of the possible dairy problem.  But I've had cottage cheese, yogurt, regular cheese and there the blood was.  So I'd have to give it all up.  For me, that would be very difficult.  As I told our cardiologist, I really can't give up ice cream with the glenn looming.  Selfish?  Maybe.  But I think keeping my sanity is probably a good thing.  D.  After speaking with Liv's cardiologist and getting her opinion, it's not worth the amount of stress it would cause me.  There is a lot of data that says that breast milk is most beneficial during the first 6 months of life and Olivia's gotten a little over half of the first 6 months taken care of.  Not ideal, but good enough considering what our family is going through right now.  E.  I don't lose weight when I'm nursing/pumping.  Once I stopped nursing Ella the pregnancy weight just fell off.  And I gain a lot when I'm pregnant no matter how hard I try not to.
And now, here's why I feel absolutely horrible with this decision.  I want to give Olivia the best chance possible to build her immune system.  I hate the fact that she'll be going through this winter without that extra help.  While Andrew is completely supportive of my decision he also mentioned that he wishes she could have my milk through the winter.  He also said he'd rather me be sane and happy with my ice cream and chocolate milk.  Of course, his little slip up of actually telling me how he felt (darn honest man) is making me feel like I'm letting him down too.  I know I'm not and he's getting frustrated with me for being so hard on myself over this.  I just can't suppress these stupid thoughts and emotions.  Poor man.  He was warned when we were engaged.  My brothers made sure to tell him I was a crazy person.  The hardest part of all this, I'm never going to be able to nurse my baby.  While nursing can be awkward sometimes and can hurt sometimes, ultimately I loved it.  It was so comforting for Ella and me.  I'll never get that with Olivia and this poor girl has already been through so much and to not get that extra comfort and closeness breaks my heart.
I'll be in mourning over this for a bit.  I know it's not a huge deal but with everything that's been going on it would've been so nice to have at least one normal baby thing.  I just have to stop letting it get to me, stop letting peoples comments about it make me feel bad, and stop letting me make me feel bad.