With the precision of a surgeon I
carefully pull each small part from my sterile plastic bag as I need
it to assemble my pump. The amazing little machine that is small
enough for me to carry discreetly to work each day and allows me to
provide nutrition for my son even while I am away from him all day at
work. A long tube, a funnel, a connecting elbow, a small, yellow
plastic doo dad, whose function is a complete mystery to me, a small
white membrane that attaches to said yellow mystery part and creates
the suction necessary to collect that invaluable milk. Everything that I need. Then, almost
in slow motion I watch with terror as the small yellow whose-a-what
slips silently through my fingers and lands with a soft thud on my
thirty year old office carpet that I know has not been vacuumed in at
least a year. It arrogantly rolls under my office chair and rests in
the filth of the hundred year old building that houses my office
space. “Shit!” can be heard up and down the halls of our fine
establishment as I, a successful yet currently topless professional
find myself scrambling under my chair to locate my yellow whats-it
along with any shred of dignity that may also be discarded under
there.
Breast pumping at work. It's as
glamorous as it sounds. When I decided that I wanted to try and
attempt to breastfeed my son, I pictured the experience of pumping in
a very romanticized way. In my mind, there I would be, relaxing
during two different periods of my work day, with my feet up, maybe
even reading a book or sneaking in a cat nap. I imagined myself
letting the oxytocin wash over me, as I basked in the glow of new
motherhood. Maybe I would wear a crown of flowers or something.
The actual act of pumping at work it
turns out, looks a bit different. Significantly less ethereal.
Instead of a relaxing book in front of me, I generally flash a
computer screen or paperwork for insurance or the social security
department. Instead of bathing in oxytocin, I am usually covered in
sweat because for some reason my office is always an oven regardless
of the temperature outside. Relaxing is generally the last thing on
the menu. Yesterday while pumping, I wrote two letters,
one to a client's employer and the other to a suboxone clinic, completed
paperwork for an upcoming disability hearing and contacted three new
clients to schedule their intake appointments. Today, I am writing
this blog post in between fielding phone calls and clearing up a
billing mistake.
I hear horror stories from other women
about where they are forced to pump at work and my heart goes out to
them. I am told stories of being forced into communal spaces and
just hoping that no one walks in on you, or pumping in bathrooms or
in their cars. Legally, employers are required to provide adequate
space for a woman to pump but the truth is, “adequate” is a bit
of a subjective term. It is sad that in the year 2016, with all that
we know of the benefits of breastfeeding that employers have yet to
catch up. I am very fortunate. I have the ideal pumping situation
and I know what a shit show it becomes even in a perfect environment.
I can't imagine the circus that pumping in sub par conditions must
be.
I always pump while sitting at my desk
which allows me to still be relatively productive. I have anxiety
and I don't do well with idle time so I am happy to be working while
pumping. This facilitates some rather unfortunate incidents,
however. I can't tell you how many times I go to pull a form out to
fax or have a client sign and see splotches of dried breast milk on
them. I pray that no one ever asks why their forms are smeared. I
guess I'll just say it's coffee... That's what they usually tell me
when I get smeared forms to fill out from them. Who knows what it
actually is...
Phone calls are interesting as well.
More than once I have had people on the other end of the phone ask me
“what is that sound?” as we are talking. I usually say that the
rhythmic suction noise is a copy machine. People must assume that I
make millions of copies per day on the slowest copy machine on Earth.
Social work, what can I say, I need a lot of copies of things...
Sometimes I forget my appointment book
on the small table next to my chair. I see a frantic text message or
call asking for my next available appointment and my heart sinks as I
see my book so close yet so far away. With the agility of a carnival
acrobat I slowly step over the electric cord that drapes from my pump
to the wall and carefully steady my hoses as I reach over to my small
side table and feel my fingertips lightly brush the edge of my
appointment book. “Not quite close enough.” I then
proceed to plan B and gingerly lift my pump up to carry it the extra inch that
will allow me enough slack to reach my book. At least at these
moments I have some time to plan my steps carefully.
Once, I sat at my pump on my break, an
open chart in front of me, waiting eagerly for my phone to ring
announcing the peer to peer review that I had scheduled for a client.
This is a conversation that I am forced to have every few months
with a doctor working for the insurance company where I must beg to
be allowed to continue services longer than they would like to pay
for. It's a nerve wracking and important call. Right on time, I
heard my phone start ringing... All the way across the room on my
side table. “Shit.” My shoulders slump right along with my
sinking heart. If you miss a peer to peer review call it is a
nightmare getting the doctor back on the phone so I leap like a
gazelle over my extension cord praying that everything stays in place
throughout the journey.
Every once in a while I get caught up
doing something and realize halfway through my break that I forgot to
pump at all. This leads to a mad dash of setting up my machine,
always with disastrous results. One time after a hasty set up, with
my mind on a million other things, I forgot to attach one of my
bottles. The funny thing about breast milk is that it is the exact
same temperature as your body, so you can get an amazing amount on
you before you realize it. Thankfully, the lack of bottle also
effected my pumps ability to create adequate suction and function properly so
it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Not like the day that I was involved in an especially heated conversation with a lawyer who was
giving one of my client's a very hard time. I didn't notice that one
of my bottles was overflowing until I had an enormous puddle of milk
in my lap. This is an unpleasant experience for the obvious reason of looking
like you peed yourself for the rest of the day (and when you explain
that it is actually breast milk people aren't really that relieved.
Some seem to prefer that it was urine, oddly enough.) But it also
means that you've wasted all of that good milk which will make any
nursing mother want to cry into her soiled pants.
Sometimes pumping at work can be
frustrating, like when I just need to fax something to be able to be
done with a task but I can't because I'm topless and tied to a desk.
It sounds like more fun than it is. Usually, I use the same pump parts
for both of my sessions in a day, I just clean them in between. I
always put them away however, because I have sessions in between and I
feel like pump parts are private. They seem along the same lines as
a new tampon or bra to me. I know that as an adult, client's are aware
that I use all of these things, but it is different knowing that
someone uses something and actually seeing it strewn about. I also
care less about another woman seeing these things than a man. The
gig is already up with other woman. Usually my system works
perfectly and I maintain some of what modesty I have left. Other
times things go awry and it is absolutely mortifying.
On one such mortifying occasion I was
sitting in a session with a young veteran. He was very sweet and
really struggling with severe PTSD as the result of the experiences
that he had while being deployed overseas. He was such a gentleman
and very, very respectful of everyone that he came into contact with,
especially women.
Sitting in his session after a
particularly busy pumping break, I glanced behind me and my eyes grew
wide with horror... “Oh my God. I forgot to put my pumping stuff
away!” I silently screamed. There, central on my desk, sprawled out vulgarly like a
prostitute in a brothel laying on a couch were all of my pump parts.
Funnels, hoses, membranes, weird pumping bra with the nipple holes
cut out and all. And the worst part, were the full bottles of milk
just sitting there going bad by the second. I could hear the clock
ticking in my mind and while logically, I knew that they would be
fine until the end of the session, I like all women lose logic when
it comes to full bottles of perfectly good breast milk. I did the
only thing that I could. I stood up and calmly walked over to my
desk, silently throwing a small towel over my pump parts while
praying that he had not seen them. Then, as nonchalantly as I could
muster with sweat dripping down my back, I picked up each little milk
bottle while still talking about therapy stuff and placed it tenderly
in it's little cooler. I was grateful that my shy soldier was likely
too much of a gentleman to call any attention.
As I write this blog post today, I am
accompanied by my trusty pump and while I am so very grateful for the
opportunity that it provides to me to be able to both work and
provide nutrition to my little one, I maintain respect for the fact
that it can F-up my day any time it chooses or feels that I am
neglecting it's unique gifts. So today, I bow to the breast pump
gods and thank them that thus far today, my pump is functioning
perfectly and I am not wearing my own milk. For any pumping mommy,
that is the mark of a good day!
No comments:
Post a Comment