Good luck with all of those decisions! I can see why you're feeling a tad overwhelmed -- just reading the list made me worry I wouldn't sleep tonight. I want to say hang in there, but you already are. So, um, take care!
Not sure if this can help your decision about conference, but I here's my experience; I left for a week when my daughter was about 12 months. I brought a pump and we went back to breastfeeding like it had never been a week off when I came back home. Probably different with a 2-year-old.
Brought pumps to both campus visits in 2006 so I could expel several times during the day (this also meant I had to tell the search committee chairs that I needed time to pump etc.!). It was totally worth it. I also pumped some before I left, but I couldn't expel as much (b/c I was nursing!), so we did resort to some formula while I was gone. It was nice, though, to bring back lots of milk (it's allowed on airplanes). I believe I froze it and used it for a conference a couple of months later.
Lots of decisions! Good luck with getting through it. And, yes, you're hanging and will continue to hang in there from here on out. We have no choice, really!
Yes, we are re-doing night weaning over the last few days (when La Dudarina was sick and even before that we had lapsed big-time) and so I'm sleeping in the other bed. Despite all my worries, I do not seem to be traumatizing my child 
. So I am thinking for my other conference I may go alone and pump, since it's short and not that far away. It will break my heart, but there will also be no lasting damage... plus she'll be two. Largely, on that front, I just need to get over myself . The other questions are definitely bigger ones that I'm still wrestling with, though!
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