Why I can't just skip a day

My boss comes back from his paternity leave tomorrow. As is customary at my company when someone goes away for an extended period of time, we took this opportunity to trash his office. We've already put diapers all over his desk and are now working on blowing up tons of balloons full of confetti. I was having so much fun just hanging out with my teammates. But now they're still hanging out and I'm alone in the pump room, doing what I gotta do.

As I mentioned in my last post, finding time to pump is a constant challenge, particularly when I have to work outside my home. Since I do work from home for the majority of the time, where finding time to pump is relatively easy, you might ask: "So, why don't you just pump on the days when you work from home, but pump significantly less (or not at all) on days like today, when you have other things you'd rather be doing?"

There are three reasons why I can't do this:

1. Littles needs to eat tomorrow. Usually, the milk I pump one day gets put in Littles' bottles the next day. No pumping today = no milk for tomorrow.
   
   It might surprise you to hear that this is the least important reason for pumping regularly. See, I have a stash of frozen milk that I can fall back on if I need to. (Milk lasts for 3-6 months in the freezer.) Right now, my stash is up to over 100 ounces, which is enough to meet all of Littles' milk needs for a couple of days. So if I don't pump today, I could always use frozen milk tomorrow.
   
2. It hurts! Even if I know that I'm not going to pump (or nurse) today, there's no way to get that message to my breasts. They'll just keep right on making milk until they're so uncomfortably full that I can hardly focus on work. This lovely condition is known as "engorgement." If it gets really bad, I could actually get mastitis, which is a very painful breast infection that can even lead to hospitalization if it gets bad enough.
   
   Again, this isn't a super-important reason. It's annoying, but if I've played multiple lacrosse games on very recently-sprained ankles, I can handle a few hours of engorgement. And luckily, I'm not too prone to mastitis, so even a full workday of not pumping probably will not land me in the hospital.
   
3. It affects my milk supply. Ah. Now this is the big reason.
   
   See, breastfeeding is a demand-supply system. Littles (or the pump) demands milk. My breasts supply more. Simple.
   
   Well, if I go for a day without nursing or pumping, my breasts will think, "Oh, we don't need to make milk anymore. Let's stop doing that." Not good.
   
   This is exactly what happened to me just before Christmas. First, I caught a stomach bug, which dropped my supply (very common during illnesses). I had just recovered from that when I launched into a two-week period where I spent a total of 5 days onsite with customers. Due to the problems I described in my last entry, this meant that I wasn't able to pump as much as I needed to..
   
   Consequently, my milk supply dropped. In the days before we left for Christmas, I was pumping about 10-12 oz a day, while Littles was eating 15-20 oz. I did have that freezer milk, so she didn't starve, but my freezer stash was rapidly dwindling and I was afraid that I'd need to supplement with formula soon -- or even switch to using it exclusively.
   
   Luckily, we had a 12-day break over Christmas and New Years where I breastfed Littles exclusively. Things were a little touchy for the first day or two, when my supply was still low, but my breasts quickly figured out that they needed to make more milk and everything was fine.
   
   When I came back from vacation and started pumping again, I went from struggling to pump 10-12 oz/day to easily pumping 20+ oz/day.
   
   At that point, I recommitted to breastfeeding/pumping and knew I had to work harder to keep my supply up. That's when I launched into my crazy schedule of pumping 4 times a day. I also carefully track all of my pumping sessions, along with Littles' consumption, in an Excel spreadsheet. This allows me to quickly spot supply drops. For example, I've been in our office all this week. Since I have to drop Littles off and pick her up (my husband is out of town), and my office is about a 1-hour bus/subway ride away, that leaves me only around six hours of actual working time. So I've only been able to pump twice during the workday. On Monday and Tuesday, I pumped over 20 oz. Yesterday, it was down to 12.75 oz. If this trend continues, I'll know I have some work to do to get my supply back up.

So no, I can't just skip a day of pumping. It does take a lot of commitment to stick with this working/pumping thing. In my next entry, I'll talk about why it's so important for me to stick with it.

Pumping it

I will warn you upfront that I will be talking about my breasts in this blog. If that disturbs you, you may not want to keep reading. Sorry.

It's unavoidable because Littles' world (and therefore mine) has sort of revolved around my breasts for the last seven months.

When I got pregnant, there was no question in my mind that I would breastfeed my baby. My mom had always extolled the virtues of breastfeeding, so I saw it as something perfectly normal and very beneficial. I knew that the American Association of Pediatricians (AAP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend breastfeeding for the first year, so I I never questioned that I'd continue breastfeeding after I went back to work, too. You just get one of those pump thingies, right? No big deal.

Like so many things when it comes to parenting, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

My college dining hall has these metal milk machines. You raise the big handle and milk comes pouring out. When your glass is full, you put the handle back down and the milk stops coming out. That's sort of what I thought breastfeeding would be like.

Yeah. My breasts are nothing like that.

Pumping is hard work. You can't just sit down and raise a handle and fill up a bottle or two or however much you need. You have to pump consistently and regularly. And even then, as the Rolling Stones once said (although probably not in relation to breastfeeding), you can't always get what you want.

Through trial and error, I've found that it works best if I pump four times during the nine hours a day (8:30 AM to 5:30 PM) that Littles is with her nanny. My normal pump schedule is 9 AM, noon, 2 PM, and 4 PM. I usually pump for at least 30 mins, sometimes 45-60 mins, at each session. You do the math. That means I need to spend roughly a third of my workday hooked up to my pump. Some days, it comes closer to half of my workday.

Luckily, as I mentioned in my last post, I work from home about 75% of the time, so this is annoying but doable. The challenge is when I have to go into my office or go onsite with a customer.

At my office, there is a lovely pump room. It is a small, clean room that locks from the inside and has a dedicated refrigerator so I don't have to gross out my (predominantely male) co-workers by storing Littles' "lunch" right next to theirs. The only issue with pumping while in the office is finding time. I'm usually there to meet with someone, and it's not always easy or convenient to excuse myself for pump breaks. I do cut back on my office days, only pumping three times for 20-30 minutes, but that's still a significant amount of time spent alone in the pump room.

Of course, that's nothing compared to the challenges of pumping while onsite with customers. It's rare for me to work multiple times with the same customer, so each person I meet is basically a stranger to me. Asking a stranger (who is almost always male), "Hey, can you give me 30 minutes to pump milk out of my breasts?" is about as embarrassing as asking said stranger, "Excuse me, do you have a tampon? I just got my period."

So I usually find an excuse to slip away without mentioning what I'm doing. This means that I often end up pumping in my car. It's actually not as bad as it sounds. I look for a remote corner of the parking lot, put on a cover in case someone walks by, crank up my radio, and pump away.

Last week, I visited a customer located in downtown San Francisco. Driving there is a huge pain, so I took BART (the subway). That meant no car to pump in, so I ended up pumping in the only other private place you're guaranteed to find almost anywhere: the bathroom. Now that is as bad as it sounds. There are never chairs in there (other than the obvious one, but that's gross), so I have to stand or squat the whole time, which is really uncomfortable. I feel bad for Littles, having to eat food that I made in a bathroom, for crying out loud. And it's embarrassing for me. My pump makes a lot of noise, and I often wonder what the other women think when they walk into the bathroom and hear it.

So why do I do it? Why don't I just skip pumping for a day or two when I have to visit a customer? I'll talk about the reasons in my next entry. Right now, I have to go pump. (Did I mention that in addition to the four sessions during the workday, I also try to pump at least once at night? Not to mention the weekends...)

Unbalanced

Main Entry: un·bal·anced
Pronunciation: \-lən(t)st\
Function: adjective
Date: 1650
: not balanced: as a: not in equilibrium b: mentally disordered or deranged

-- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

What a perfect description of the life of a working mom like myself.

Some background on me. I've been working in the customer support department of a large software company since I graduated from college six years ago. Four years ago, I moved into my "dream job," where I did onsite support for my company's largest customers. I spent the next few years flying around the country and the world on an expense account, racking up the frequent flyer miles, experiencing Fargo in February and Dubai in June and everything in between. I loved it. Everything about it, from the work to the travel to the awesome people I worked with. And I was good at it. I got promotions and good reviews. Everyone told me my potential was unlimited.

So it's fitting that I was on a business trip in early October 2006 when I found out I was pregnant.

I never questioned the fact that I would return to work, but I knew that some things would need to change. Blessed with a supportive boss, I was able to cut my travel from nearly 100% to virtually 0% overnight. I even got his buy-off to work almost exclusively from home starting in February, when I was about 5 months pregnant.

I worked up until Friday, June 15, 10 days past my due date. I went in that Sunday to be induced, and Littles was born on Monday.

I was very lucky to get four months of paid maternity leave. I thought I'd be bored. Yeah, right! I loved every minute of it. It was this wonderful fantasyland where I could be a full-time mommy without giving up my career.

On October 22, I had to leave the fantasyland. My maternity leave ended, and I went back to work full-time.

I could not ask for a better working/childcare situation. Littles shares a nanny with a two-year-old girl who lives nearby and they are at our house two days a week. I work from home about 75% of the time, so I can often pop downstairs and say hello during the day, or just hear her happy squeals as she plays. The other 25% of the time, I work onsite with customers in the local area, so no more overnight travel.

And yet, I don't think a day has gone by when I haven't fantasized about quitting my job and staying home with Littles full-time. So I wouldn't have to ask to push back 8:00 AM conference calls because my husband is at work at that hour and my nanny doesn't come till 8:30. So I wouldn't have to spend a large part of my day hooked up to a breastpump. So my nanny wouldn't be the first person to see my daughter sit up by herself for the first time.

But I haven't quit. I'm hanging in there, in hopes that one day, I'll feel more in equilibrium. And less mentally deranged.