Sometimes I feel like a defective cow

So with a lot of talk out there about breastfeeding I decided to throw my hat into the ring. Breastfeeding sucks!! So why do I continue to do it? I really don't have a good answer for that. I would love to go with the breast is best philosophy and say that's why I do it. But the truth is, I do it because of the cost. I already had a good electric pump from when Jacob was born and I hate to not use it to get my moneys worth. Pathetic, huh? So I started to think about my experience with breastfeeding.
The horrors of flat nipples, a bad latch and a screaming baby should have turned me off from breastfeeding forever. Before my first son was born I knew I was going to breastfeed him. There was no question about it. I just took it for granted that I would have a baby and he would feed off of me. I never even knew I had "semi-flat" nipples, as the LC liked to call them. So when Jacob was born and he wouldn't latch I was crushed. As a new mom I didn't understand why my baby was rejecting me. I had gone through 37 hours of labor to bring him into this world, I was exhausted and I just wanted to feed my baby. Instead I was left frustrated. I ended up using a dropped to give him formula. Then after several more failed attempts, the lactation consultant brought me my doom, a nipple guard. This was the worst decision I could have made. It made nursing a pain in the butt. I always had to have the guard with me. I had to put it on, line him up and let him feed. Then the milk would pool up in the end of it and would no longer adhere to my skin and I would have a puddle of milk spilled into my lap. We tried and tried to wean Jacob off of the guard and directly onto my breast, but it was too frustrating for both of us. During the 10 weeks that I breastfed, my milk supply dwindled making me feel even more inadequate as a mom. The best decision I made for my son and myself was to stop breastfeeding and use formula. We were both much happier.
This time I had no delusions about breastfeeding Daniel. I was going to give it a try, but I wasn't going to make myself crazy over it. So when Daniel was born after a very easy labor I attempted breastfeeding. It was a little tricky, but he got it! He really got it. I was surprised at the amount of elation I had over something so simple. The following day while Daniel was nursing I had blood drawn. During that time Daniel lost his latch and d reattached himself on me incorrectly (I couldn't adjust him b/c of the blood draw being done). Shortly after this, a very aggressive LC came into my room and saw the bruising on my nipple. She declared we can't have that and started to "help" me. I instantly remembered her from Jacob's birth and knew I didn't like her. She had been very forceful with Jacob. She pushed his face into my breast trying to force him to latch. Now I have huge tatas and this was very traumatizing to him, which I think hurt our later attempts at breastfeeding so there was no way I was going to let this woman do the same thing to Daniel. I told her I felt OK with how things were going. She took one look at my nipples and said my son was not going to do well on my breast. You see, my aereola tissue gets very dense and fibrous. It's almost like scar tissue and it was difficult for Daniel to latch on to. She said she would get me a nipple guard so he could latch. Well you should have seen the look of disgust on her face when I said NO! There was no way in hell I was going down that road again. I said either he latches and gets breast or he doesn't and he'll get formula and expressed milk. She snottily said if I was OK with that then fine. I said I was perfectly fine with it.
Well here I am 10 weeks later. I have days when I wonder what the hell am I doing still trying to breastfeed? I am having a hot and torrid affair with my pump twice a day at work. I pump before I come to work. I give Daniel a boob when I get home and then throughout the night. But it's not that simple. There are frequent times when he is just too fussy or upset to go on the breast. He writhes and wriggles and screams, so I get upset. I'm back to that rejection state. Why doesn't my baby want me? And I know it's not a rejection of me in my mind, but my heart tells a different tale. The thing that's killing me with the whole breastfeeding thing is that just when I'm ready to throw in the towel and say to Hell with this, we have a great feeding session. He'll latch right away, feed quickly and become content. And so I say…this isn't so bad and I decide to keep breastfeeding only to hit those roadblocks again and again. So with all of this endless babbling, I'm not sure what I will end up doing. It is a day by day decision for me and it is hard.