Who I am and why I am doing this.

In a few weeks I am returning to work "full time plus" after being out of work for 7 months and with my son for 5 months.  I was on bed rest for two months before my son was born which is where the extra time came from.  When my little boy arrived I was so excited to nurse him and to provide him with the best nutrition I could.
For the first two months of his life I struggled with breastfeeding and his weight gain so I was expressing and bottle feeding.  Why do you ask was I doing this?  Well when I brought my son in for his first check up after the hospital he had lost nearly a pound.  Our pediatrician wanted me to start him on formula supplementation and if I was going to continue nursing I needed to use a "contraption" to give him extra milk while I was nursing.  So there I was with a 4 day old baby and a nipple shield and a syringe with a tube attached that was stuck in my sons mouth to give him a few extra ounces while he tried to get milk from me.  This was not working because I couldn't hold the baby and depress the syringe and keep the shield in place and the tube in his mouth at the same time without assistance.  So I sent my mom to the store to get a pump and I pumped for every feeding and then gave him his bottle and got absolutely nothing else done except pump, feed, wash, nap repeat.  But that was okay with me because I wasn't giving up on what I wanted to do which was breastfeed my son.  
When my supply started to dwindle around two months I had two choices give up or get back to breastfeeding the old fashioned way.  I am not the giving up type so I chose option two.  That was again a difficult process with painful, bleeding nipples, a bout with thrush and a few more ups and downs with my son's weight but we got there.  
Now at the end of this month as my son turns 6 months old I will be returning to work "full time plus" and have started to worry about how I am going to continue to provide my child with nutrition and keep up our nursing relationship.  Why do I call it "full time plus" because I am a full time teacher and a coach for three months out of the year.  So this blog is going to serve to keep my spirits up and document my efforts to not give up once more on my nursing relationship with my son.