When Joshua was first born he wasn't able to nurse. Babies at his gestational age hardly have a suck reflex, so they started him on a pacifier really early to strengthen his sucking. 
Joshua obviously needed to be fed to grow and to gain the strength so he could eventually learn how to nurse so he was fed through a feeding tube. I will probably do another post about his feedings later.
When the nurse first brought in the pump I thought it wasn't going to work, but I decided to try for Joshua. The first day I didn't get enough to store to give to Joshua. The next day I started to get a little more and Brian worked hard to get every drop out of the pump pieces into the storage bottles. The next day I was making enough to feed Joshua myself. Eventually my body kicked it in high gear and I started making a lot of milk. I probably averaged in the high 30's of ounces made every day. (24-30 ounces is considered a full milk supply). A few times it kind of got out of control and I started making 40-45 ounces a day and I had to start trying to cut back on my milk supply.
I spent a lot of time pumping, it was basically a full time job for me. While I was waiting for my milk to come in I pumped 9 times a day, including 2 times at night. As soon as my milk came in I went down to 8 times a day and only once at night. Towards the end I was doing 6-7 times a day.
I also pumped in tons of various places. I obviously pumped at home. I pumped at the NICU, they had a whole special room dedicated to pumping. It felt like a barn to me, because we would go in to our own little stalls and hook up, and there was a freezer in there. I felt like saying Mooooo many a day I was there. After Joshua came home I bought my own pump, which was good because he wasn't nursing well. I ended up pumping and bottle feeding him when we came East, so I have pumped in many a state in the back of our car.
Storage was an issue, they only had so much room in the hospital, and we only had so much room in our freezer at home. Joshua was only eating 16 ounces a day when he came home and about 1 ounce a day at the beginning, so there was a lot of extra milk. I eventually decided to rent a meat locker after I filled up my freezer, my sister's freezer, and the extra space in my parent's freezer. I got some weird looks when I told the owner of the meat locker what I needed it for.
I got a locker that would hold about 250 pounds of meat. I filled it all up in the 2 months Joshua was in the NICU with excess milk that Joshua didn't need and I didn't dump. (I dumped quite a bit, mostly because I would forget to bring home bottles to store the milk and I couldn't do anything with it). Recently Brian and I bought a chest freezer that holds 250 pounds of meat, Brian was quite impressed when I told him I filled that up. Here is what our freezer looks like. 
Unfortunately I had to throw most of the milk away when we moved east because I couldn't donate it because I was on blood thinners after Joshua was born, and the movers wouldn't ship the milk. That was really sad to watch it all go to waste.
Pumping was a lot of work, but it was worth it. Look at how much he grew. Here is is at the beginning.
Here he is right before we came home
And here he is after after right after I finished nursing him. 
He's adorable! I admire your ability to stick to it - NOT easy.
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