swmum - it's completely understandible that you have these feelings about breastfeeding. All it makes you is typical -most women in this country have very little exposure to unselfconscious, easy breastfeeding as part of their normal life experience. It's just a shame we are expected to make such an important decision on behalf of our babies from that position, before our natural mothering instincts have really had a chance to kick in.
I think all the advice on this thread to wait and see how you feel when you meet your baby. Like other people here - I have known mums to change their minds about breastfeeding after the birth when they've felt and seen their babies crawl up towards their breast after birth and latch on to feed. Intinct often just kicks in - for mothers and babies if they're given a chance to have that precious skin to skin contact for a reasonable period after the birth.
Have to say, on another note, and not directly to the OP but in response to some of the other posts here (and I'm sorry if this annoys people): when it comes to 'doing what's best for us and our babies' - I do have a bit of a problem with this phrase, which I've seen bandied around a lot with very little thought given to what it really signifies.
It seems to me that it's based on an assumption that if we don't want to breastfeed then must be best for our babies that we don't do it. I can't see how this works given that breastfeeding has hard benefits for babies in health and developmental terms. And why is it seen as so subversive to turn this phrase around and argue that as long as our babies are getting what they really want (which lets face it is going to be breastmilk - what baby would knowingly choose formula over the real thing, on health grounds or on grounds of taste or aesthetics ?), then we'll be happy?
I suppose people must feel that if you find breastfeeding difficult or unpleasant in any way then you'll someone transmit your frustration and your unhappiness with breastfeeding to your baby and that the damage this does in emotional and psychological terms somehow outweighs all the proven health/emotional/developmental benefits that come with breastfeeding.
Personally I can't accept that the mechanism is that simple. I know mums who've bottlefed who've struggled bottlefeeding because they've become anxious about the sterilising/cleaning issues, babies who feed slowly/are always constipated/very sicky etc. I also know bf mums who've really struggled with breastfeeding physically and emotionally but who've ploughed on from a conviction that breastfeeding has such important health benefits for their babies and that the few months that they had to do it was such a short time out of their lives, compared to the lifetime of benefits that they were giving to their child. Would you look at women in these situations and think - your negative feelings about your method of feeding are damaging your baby? Babies aren't mind readers! Unless you take your negative feelings about how you are feeding them out on your baby they really aren't going to know that you find breastfeeding embarrassing/painful/a bit of a tie or that you find bottlefeeding a pain in the arse.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that we should go through life being martyrs to our children, or that women who develop PND because of unresolved breastfeeding issues should just plough on regardless. I do think that PND can be very damaging for mums and babies, and I accept that breastfeeding problems and anxieties are sometimes implicated in it. All I'm saying is that you don't have to LOVE breastfeeding or even particularly enjoy it for your baby to reap the benefits. There are lots of aspects of looking after a baby that are hard and not particularly enjoyable, but mostly we accept that we just have to take the rough with the smooth - that it's part of the mothering package. There's a long distance between finding breastfeeding a chore, and feeling utterly depressed and overwhelmed by breastfeeding problems to the point where it's affecting your relationship with your child.