I am addicted to breastfeeding

There I said it. Judge away. I love breastfeeding my son. I know it isn't for everyone, but it totally works for us.
With I had Faith, I had so much trouble breastfeeding. I only ever nursed her with a nipple shield, and by 6-7 months old, Faith decided she didn't want to nurse anymore. So I pumped. I pumped, and pumped and pumped. Pumping was a full time job, on top of my full time job, and taking care of a baby. Faith never had a drop of formula. EVER.Do you know how hard that is to only pump and for your baby to never ever get any formula? It was a huge deal to be to be successful at something that had to do with babies. I didn't feel successful at pregnancy or child birth, so I had to make this work. There would be times when I didn't make a lot of milk, and I would freak out. My sister and Damian were the best support group I have ever had. When I was freaking out about not having enough milk, they talked me through it. They did whatever they could to make sure that I could sit down and pump and pump and pump. There would be weekends where I would stay at home all weekend, pumping. It became addicting. I ended up having a freezer full of milk, and was able to give Faith breast milk until she was 16 months old. I would do it all over again just like that if I had to, but when I was getting ready to have Noah, I decided that I didn't want it to be like that. I wanted to be able to nurse him, and I wanted it to work out the way I dreamed about.I read more about breastfeeding, I went to a couple LLL meetings and asked lots of questions. I had a game plan, and was ready to tackle breastfeeding again.
I was lucky to have Noah in the St David's Women's Center. They really push breastfeeding. In the hospital, they don't like your baby to loose more than 10% of their birth weight. Noah was at 7% when I started freaking out thinking they were going to make me give him formula. That wasn't the case at all. The nurse said that they would make me pump before they would ever try to make me give him formula.
Damian and I decided to make it a point to get Noah up every 2-3 hour to nurse him while we were still in the hospital. By the time we left he was up 2%.
If I said our breastfeeding relationship was a breeze after that, I would be a liar. The next two weeks were awful. I wanted to quit. It hurt so bad, and I felt like I was always nursing.
I had a lactation consultant come over and reassure me. She told me it would get better, and you know what? It did.
We have been going strong now for almost four months. No nipple shields, no latch issues, no problems. Well, the only problem we really have is that Noah doesn't like the bottle at all. He will take one if he has to, but doesn't really like it. And you know what? I am ok with that. I enjoy every moment that I get to nurse him.
The way he looks up at me while he is nursing makes my heart swell. And his milky smile when he finishes is the sweetest thing I have ever seen.

I told Damian that I totally get now why people want to nurse their babies as long as they can. I could honestly see myself nursing him way past a year. Judge away. Think I am a freak, a crazy woman who is going to "ruin" her child. I don't care what anyone thinks.
This is our last baby that I will get to nurse. I want to make sure that I do it as long as I can, and enjoy it. There will be no more babies from us. Both of my pregnancies weren't the easiest and it isn't fair to myself, or my family to have anymore kids. We are very happy with the two beautiful babies we have.

So that is my story.. My name is Diedre and I am addicted to breastfeeding.