Mogwai, I have to say I felt just like you and held your opinions and had no plans to BF DS while pregnant with him. He was born around midnight and as soon as he was born he had a formula feed (because I had an emergency cs and was shaking uncontrollaby afterwards). Then, by about 4pm later that day back on the pn ward, - don't know what it was, maybe it was hormones - but I felt this overwhelming need to BF because I sort of felt sorry for DS who seemed so vulnerable. It's unexplainable and it must have been totally instinct driven but I just knew I was not giong to be happy until I'd done it.
As it was it didn't go at all well - by the time we were discharged he'd lost a lot of weight (more than the average loss)and the guilt I felt at having effectively starved him was absolutely crushing. I developed an abcess on one of my nipples (horrendously painful and needed to be treated by antibiotics) but I persevered once home with no help or support from community midwives despite many calls to them.
I expressed all my colostrum but that was DSs lot! He went on to the bottle and just thrived. DH took an active part in caring for him and got the opportunity to spend real quality bonding time with DS. He woked odd hours at that time and always did his night feeds while I was asleep in bed - what a fantastic luxury! He did not have to play second fiddle to me while DS was crying after me because he could smell the breast milk!!
Other family memebers also got a chance to bond with DS too - which was also very important to us. I'd also point out that with bottle feeding siblings get a chance to get involved in feeding and bonding too - not something they can do with BFding unless milk is exclusively expressed which is not practical.
I actually think that bottlefeeding is better for bonding - at least you can have eye contact with your baby when you bottle feed it - most BF babies seem to me totally smothered by their mother's breasts - I also think it can cause problems with very young siblings because if a mother if constantly BFding it can look to them as if their sibling is being constantly cuddled - explain it to them as much as you like they'll still perceive it that way.
I'm so glad I decided to bottle feed. DS is now 4 and a half, we are extremely close, he is ill I believe no more or no less than his BF peers, he is not overweight and he is doing fantastically well in his first year at school.
I feel vindicated in my choice to "deny him species specific milk" and I'd do it again without hesitation if I had plans to have another child (which I don't) - unless of course my hormones kicked in as they did before!!