Pumping at work

Pumping at work is……well, uncomfortable and interesting.

Luckily, I am provided a “Mother’s Room” (that’s within the bathroom) with a hard chair, a mini fridge and it feels like an iceberg. If you’ve never pumped before let me tell you about it. You have to lift your entire shirt up above your boobs so you can attach the cups so you are fully exposed. A room that feels like an iceberg is NOT ideal when half of you is exposed for 10-15 minutes.

My guess is a man designed the room and the temperature of it. Of course there is no thermostat in there for me to control so I have to bring a sweatshirt with me every time.

I pump 3 times while at work; 8am, 10:30 or 11am and 2pm.

Unfortunately, I am not the only Mom that uses the room. When I returned back to work (Aug 9^th) there were 3, yes, THREE other Mom’s using the room so we had to coordinate a schedule that would work best for all of us.

I wanted to make sure my supply stayed up so I decided to pump 3 times while the others only do it 2 times. Maybe they come in to work later than I do, I have no idea.

Of course sometimes schedules get messed up with meetings and such which is why sometimes I’m pumping at 10:30 and other times it’s 11. It’s annoying when I can’t go in at my schedule time due to work issues…….

(I am my child’s food source. That is my #1 priority right now. Nothing else matters to me. Sometimes I want to tell that to everyone at work. “I don’t care about my job right now; I HAVE to go empty myself so my child has food tomorrow.”)

Daddy giving Preston some Mommy milkers.

LIKE….one day the girl who goes in at 10:30 could not switch with me (I had a meeting at 11) so I went around the building looking for an extension cord. I was going to pump in the handicap stall but there was no outlet. I would have plugged the extension cord in the wall by the sink and brought it in the stall with me.

However, I was unable to find one SO I frantically ran around the building looking for a conference room without windows. There is ONE in the entire building and it does not have a lock. :-/

I hesitantly went in and set everything up. I put a little sticky note that read “Do Not Disturb” but was worried no one would see it, it was so small. I pumped for less than my normal time because I was afraid of being “caught” (as if I was doing something wrong) and I felt violated for some reason.

Okay, so pumping in and of itself is not a comfortable thing. It does not feel good and quite honestly, it sometimes hurts.

I bring in my pump bag with a paper bag that holds my supplies (breast shields, bottles to catch the milk, bags to store the milk in, a sharpie marker and my nipple cream). Yep, I bring in a lot and I feel a little weird doing it.

So, as I stated above, this Mother’s Room is inside the bathroom. You can only imagine the sounds I hear while I am pumping. When you’re in the bathroom, you can’t hear anything in the Mother’s Room but it’s not the same when you’re in the Mother’s Room and I don’t think anyone knows that but the Mothers using the room.

This could lead me into a whole other discussion but women are DI-SGUSTING when it comes to bathroom manners. I hear noises that sound like they should be coming from the men’s room but they aren’t. I am truly blown away by some women I work with and quite frankly I can’t even look at them in the eyes anymore.