At first I thought my milk hadn't come in but after a couple days of pumping out 6 oz I realized I just had a supply problem. I never had luck pumping in the past but I didn't have a proper pump either. I'm sure I couldn't have had more than 6 oz because I felt empty. I was pumping every 2 hours for 20 min, nursing on each side for 20 min then feeding pumped milk and formula to the baby. I didn't last very long. Nursing was the most time consuming and frustrating part so I gave that up. I was going to try nursing again once I had enough milk for her. After a couple weeks I had enough supply (24 oz) so tried nursing. She nursed happily for 20 min each side. I then pumped and got all the milk I would have if she hadn't nursed. She promply drank what I pumped. I knew pretty much by then that I was going to EP. I did try the SNS but couldn't get it to work.
I planned on EPing until she was 6 mos. My supply increased an once a day till 36 then 2 oz a week till about 50. At 5.5 mos I started weaning and completely stopped 3 weeks later. I ended up with a 3 mos supply in the freezer. Cynthia is almost 8 mos now and drinking only frozen expressed milk.
While I'm sad that I didn't nurse her I'm proud that I was able to pump enough for her to have breastmilk for 9 mos. Pumping is time consuming and much harder than bf. Next time I will be more careful.