Working Full-time. Breastfeeding Full-time.

I went back to work last week, and I have to say, I was more anxious about the pumping than the work-related projects and challenges that were just ahead. The morning of June 1^st, I packed up my breast pump, shields, tubes, lids, and cooler, and threw on an easy-access-to-the-breasts outfit, dropped Mia off at daycare, cried my eyes out, got to work, cried my eyes out some more, and sat at my desk thinking, how the hell am I going to do this? Of course I know so many women who do it. I see them walk in and out of the sterile, creepy lactation room in the HR department all the time. And my sister did it with her kids. So there’s nothing to it, right?

Um, wrong.

I am on Day 5, and it kinda sucks. Here’s how it goes: I get to work and I put the cooler with the ice pack in the freezer and hope no one messes with it. (We have some nosy people here and if you’re not careful, some asshat could be using your breastmilk as creamer.) Then I work for a couple hours until it is time to pump. I gather up all my breastessories and head down to the gross lactation room. The table in there seriously has dried milk spots from the numerous breasts that came before me. I then strip down and pump for twenty minutes. After this is done I get dressed and pack everything up, then I go upstairs and quickly refrigerate the milk, again hoping it doesn’t get put in someone’s mid-morning coffee. At lunchtime I rush to the daycare to nurse Mia. (I am so so lucky that it’s close by and I am able to do this. Not only do I get to spend an hour cuddling with my sweet baby girl, but it does wonders for my milk supply.) After lunch it’s more tears and back to work. I try to scarf something down at my desk and then a few hours later I go back into the cave to pump some more. At the end of the workday, I gather up all this stuff and rush to the daycare, pick up the baby bear, and rush home to get the milk in the fridge asap. (You understand my urgency to refrigerate the milk if you know anything about Texas summers.)

This is just the daytime stuff. At night, after Mia goes to bed, I have to wash everything, store the expressed milk in the freezer, and try to find time to pump extra so the hubs and I can have some home supply in case he wants some daddy-daughter feeding time, which he loves.

It’s hard. At times I feel like I am having an affair with the pump.

That said, when Mia cries for her middle-of-the-night feeding, I bring her into my bed and she nuzzles my breast, no bottle between us, and she looks up at me and smiles, mouth full o’ momma, and a little milk dribbles out from the corner of her lips, and I know that I wouldn’t have it any other way.