Its been a good run

The experience has been more than amazing and rewarding.  I will never forget how close it has made me to my baby girls.  But closing in on the 6th month mark we have decided to stop nursing.  I can't imagine never have nursed them and know that they made such an amazing recovery in the NICU because of my choice to give them breast milk.  They have gone from premature little babies to chunky little gremlins.  With school approaching and a long road trip ahead I feel like now would be the best time to stop, not to mention miss O. has been on the verge of a nursing strike for the last week.  No these are not excuses by any means, my entire plan was to stop at 6 months.  <3

I would like to say that I encourage moms to nurse even if for a short period of time.  Yes you can bond using a bottle but I don't think I've felt as close as when nursing at 3AM and having them stare into my eyes and just smile feeling them so close.  With the bottle (which we do through out the day, from pumping) it feels more detached.  

On the other side of the spectrum, it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done.  Stressful, lots of work (twins..yeah double time), not to mention painful at times.  I still remember working in the hospital to get them to learn how to eat, leaving and pumping at home every 3 hours throughout the night.  You can imagine being attached to a machine for 2 months.  Also the stress of knowing them nursing is what's holding them back (those last 2 weeks specifically), if we were to simply give them a bottle they'd be home that much quicker. Even still coming home for the first week all 3 of us would cry and cry because nursing just didn't seem to work.  But with time it did, we found a schedule, they got stronger and the tears went away.  Even if it meant spending a lot of time on the couch feeling as though it's all we did.  

With all that said and done, I'd go back and do it again.  IF...huge if right now ;),  we do choose to have more children I will nurse them as well.  

I'm proud of my self, many I'm sure thought I'd never make it this far and some even pushed not.  But I did my goal and proved to myself how amazing it can be.