It really bothers me to hear people make it sound like it's breastfeeding or
nothing, and that pumping is a major obstacle. Maybe if I'd ever been able
to breastfeed a baby and seen how easy it was, I might feel that way, but
having EPd, I know it can work, even in a worst case scenerio where
breastfeeding just isn't working at all.

but this isn't a situation where breastfeeding isn't working at all,
it's the opposite, breastfeeding seems to be fine and giving bottles is
the issue, a lot of people offered multiple suggestions to solve the
bottle feeding problems. Deciding to EP when breastfeeding is working is
a totally different ball game to deciding to do it when it isn't, you
pretty much had no option, it was give bottles of breastmilk or give
bottles of formula, you committed to the smart choice of pumping for her
- but unfortunately that means you haven't experienced a normal
breastfeeding relationship. Mixed pumping and breastfeeding can work out
great, most of us have done it and I imagine with twins that it could be
a helpful tool. EPing can apparently go pretty well at first, I've seen
it happen many many times, life revolves around baby anyway, you always
have to take a bottle out etc, you just do it, but as time passes it can
get harder and harder to keep the milk supply up, then once they are on
solids they can get a bit more unpredictable, do you take a bottle out
with you or not? will you need to pump on this trip or not? the
convenience of breastfeeding really increases at this point. It all
depends what your goals are - you really are very rare in providing some
ebm through to 2 years, which is the WHO recommendation for
breastfeeding, even 1 year is pretty unusual, so it depends what your
goals are, it's going to look different if you're wanting to make it
another month or another 6 months. The vast majority of the time fixing
a breastfeeding problem is going to get better results than moving to EPing.

Anne