Welcome Beautiful Mama!

This website was born out of a desire to create a comprehensive resource for mamas who want to provide breast milk for their baby via exclusive pumping (“EPing”).  The information on this website is intended to be used as an educational resource; it is not medical advice.  If you have any questions or concerns about your specific situation, you should always contact your doctor or healthcare professional.

I’m Kali, and I am a former EPer.  My daughter was born in 2020, and I spent the last year exclusively pumping for her.  Before she was born, I worried nursing might be challenging—many of my friends had struggled early on in their nursing journeys—but I was still completely unprepared when my newborn daughter struggled to latch.  Just over 24 hours after her birth I was still hand expressing when a lactation counselor suggested I rent a hospital pump until my daughter and I were better at nursing.  The next thing I knew, I was trying to take care of a brand new baby, practicing nursing, pumping until we hit our nursing stride, and trying to heal from the delivery.  To say it was a lot feels like an understatement!

Over the next week my daughter and I worked on nursing.  I was optimistic!  However, just after my daughter was a week old, I hemorrhaged and was taken into emergency surgery.  After surgery I was not physically or emotionally ready to work on nursing for a few days, and once I was ready, my daughter had seemingly made her choice–she wanted the bottle nipples!  After six or seven weeks of working on nursing, I threw in the towel and resigned myself to EPing.  It was about this point, approximately two months postpartum, that I realized I really had no idea what I was doing with my pump.  Until this point I had been pumping as a means to an end until we were successful at nursing.  Now I knew that pumping was the only way I could provide breast milk for my daughter.  I had so many questions but struggled to find the answers.  And even when I did find the answers I was searching for, most of the time they were not presented in a quick, easily digestible manner.  Towards the end of my time EPing, I realized that my research and personal experience could benefit others, and EP&Me was created.  I hope reading about my EP journey helps you feel more supported and more confident about your own.

Happy Pumping!