On Exclusively Pumping

It's 6:30am on a Tuesday. I was hoping to get more sleep but Ellie woke up at 5:30, ate, and went back down at 6 and then I had to pump. Steve didn't wake up so I'm hanging with my laptop in the kitchen. I can't really complain because he usually gets up at night to feed Ellie so I can just pump and we can all go back to bed but on the occasions where he doesn't wake up I don't usually wake him up.

How did we get here? I didn't even know exclusively pumping was a thing until I was sort of thrust into it. Ellie was so small in the NICU she couldn't take breast or bottles so I started pumping probably 30 seconds after I got back to my room from recovery. The nurse came in and showed me how it worked and that was that. 
(They did give Ellie formula after birth because she had low blood sugar but she's been exclusively on breast milk since she was 3 days old, so I consider her EBF at this point)
I had all these dreams of extended breastfeeding and breastfeeding until my baby weaned herself and blah blah blah (I am a way crunchier mom than I ever thought I would be, just a random thought for another day perhaps?) and it just wasn't the case. The nurses asked me if I had a preference and 12 days into the NICU my baby was taking bottles like a champ and we could go home if I was good with that. Why wouldn't we go home?!
I feel like I really put in a good honest effort with breastfeeding. I've seen every LC in the city almost, we still breastfeed daily. She's just primarily bottle fed breastmilk and that's really okay with me. If I couldn't BF exclusively at least I could keep her on breastmilk (please note, I have no issue with formula or formula feeding, with a small premature baby it was just something that was important to me. if I wouldn't have been able to continue this long or for whatever reason I would have switched!)
My initial goal was 6 months. We did it! I'm really proud to say. There were definitely moments I thought about quitting. It's hard, especially at night when my husband is blissfully sleeping and I'm accepting the fact that today is one of those days where I've been up since 530 even though everyone else slept in. Or when Ellie is incredibly fussy or we are on our own and I can't pick her up while I pump and she cries. But we are getting better at that. Or simply when I just really don't want to pump. I tolerate it on a good day. I hate it on a bad. It's not what I pictured, but that's okay. 

I don't know how much longer I will pump. I'm kind of hoping to keep her on breastmilk until she's at least a year. But even if that's only partially that's okay too. Just going to go with the flow and see what happens. As someone with PCOS and someone who's exclusively pumping I've been lucky to maintain enough of a supply for this. I've managed to cut down to 5 pumps a day without too much of a dip which is way better than the 8-10 I started out doing. 
Is it a big deal? Will it matter in 10 years? I have no idea. I can't help but be a little proud now and humbled by the experience. Maybe it won't matter in 10 years. Maybe it won't matter in 2, but even if it doesn't. We've made it this far and right now, that's pretty good.