Breast milk Update

Just a quick and final update on my milk supply.  I am still pumping six times during the day and waking up to pump once in the middle of the night.  And you know what?  I am almost able to feed her with just my breast milk!  She's getting about 6oz of donor breast milk/week right now and the rest is my own.  She has gotten more picky over the past several weeks though.  She used to take donor breast milk easily, but then she started to reject it.  I guess she was developing a taste for mine (better than the other way around...).  But we've found that if we mix them half and half she takes it just fine.

Looking back on everything I tried to increase my milk supply I would probably have to say that the consistent pumping and decreasing my stress level helped more than anything.  I took the fenugreek for about 6 weeks and then added alfalfa, blessed thistle, and Mother's Milk tea for about 2 weeks.  After taking six pills/meal three times/day (yes that is 6 pills a day- 7 if you include my prenatal) for 2 weeks I couldn't stomach it anymore.  I stopped taking all the supplements (that was around 7 weeks) and my milk supply still continued to increase.  At this point I think it has pretty much leveled out.  I don't think I'm producing much more milk now than I was a couple weeks ago.  I pump out anywhere between 2oz and 6oz each pumping session.  Long story short I'll never have an abundance of milk but I am thankful I have been able to produce more than I was the first couple weeks after Phoebe was born.

My goal was to pump and see if I could increase my supply and endure pumping to feed her breast milk for 4 months.  I think with the help of our donor milk we'll be able to do this.  We still have several bags of frozen donor milk in the freezer and there's a few more that we'll be able to get at some point.

Now I'm thinking I would like to try to continue to pump some (not as much as I am doing now) for 6 months to try to get her a bit more breast milk while of course supplementing formula for whatever I can't produce.

Thanks for all your encouragement and for walking through this journey with me.  I hope this will all be easier with baby #2 but at least next time I'll be prepared knowing that breast feeding doesn't always work the way you think it should and that's ok.