My worst day as a working mom

I was in the office today and had lunch with one of my friends, who had her first baby back in January. She just started back at work a few weeks ago, so not surprisingly, it didn't take long for our conversation to drift to the topic of working motherhood.

She is pretty unhappy right now, for a variety of reasons, and talking fairly seriously about quitting her job to stay home with her daughter. Listening to her struggles took me back to my early months back at work.

I started this blog about three months after I returned to work, which means you all were spared the depths of my working-mom despair. I've talked a little bit about it, here and here, but... well, it was bad. Sometimes, I look back and I'm just amazed I made it through and that I am so genuinely happy right now. That's what I tried to get across to my friend.

Specifically, I told her about my worst day as a working mom.

It was in December, the week before Christmas, so Littles was 6 months old and I had been back to work for just under two months. I was working in the same job that I had had before going on maternity leave, which was an onsite product support position. Pre-baby, that job often took me on the road for overnight travel.

Luckily, while I was on maternity leave, an amazing opportunity opened up. A customer located just 20 minutes away from my home purchased a block of "dedicated" hours -- basically, they paid big bucks to get a support person assigned to work through support issues with them. I hoped to be that person, as it would guarantee little to no overnight travel for me.

That week before Christmas, there was a big meeting at the customer site to discuss plans for a big project that would require a significant amount of support. I was invited to sit in on the meeting. All the project bigwigs would be at the meeting, and I saw this as an opportunity to make a good impression and solidify me as their dedicated support person.

The meeting was scheduled from 8 AM to 5 PM. Since Hubby was out of town, this meant I had to ask Maria, our nanny, to come at 7:30 AM so that I could leave Littles with her and get to the meeting. Since it usually took a few minutes to get Littles settled with Maria, I told the meeting organizer that I'd likely be a few minutes late. Not much I could do about that -- I felt bad enough making Maria come an hour early as it was. But I also felt bad wandering in a few minutes late, knowing that the reason for my late arrival likely hadn't been communicated to all the attendees.

As usual during onsite customer visits, pumping was a huge pain. The meeting ran all day, with just some very brief breaks and a working lunch. I didn't even have enough time to make it out to my car, so I pumped in the bathroom for the first time. The female bigwigs from the meeting used the same bathroom, and I worried about what they thought when they heard the "whoomp-whoomp" of my pump. In my head, they were saying, "Why is she pumping in the bathroom? She's so stupid." "She breastfeeds? Yuck. That's so gross." (No one actually said anything to me, but I worried nonetheless.)

I also stressed about not being able to pump often enough. I had had a bout with the stomach flu about two weeks earlier, which had killed my supply, and my freezer stash was dwindling dangerously low. I was pretty sure I was just days away from supplementing with formula. It was a very bad time for me to have a day where I could barely pump at all.

So it was a stressful day for all those reasons. But the kicker came at the end of the day.

As I said before, the meeting was scheduled to run till 5 PM. 5 PM rolled around and the leader showed no signs of wrapping things up. Then, at 5:30 PM (the time that Maria expected me home), we launched into an entirely new -- and extremely important -- topic of conversation. This was not something that could be covered quickly. I knew it could take hours.

I sat in the back of the room squirming. With Hubby out of town and no family or friends anywhere nearby, I was the only one who could pick up Littles.

There were no openings in the conversation for me to explain why I had to leave. And I was on the verge of tears anyway, and didn't trust my own voice.

Finally, at 6 PM, I got up and just walked out. (I later found out that the meeting ran until almost 9 PM.)

I ran to my car and sobbed the entire way home. I felt like a complete failure, as an employee and as a mother. I just wanted to make it all stop, quit my job and stay at home and stop feeling pulled in so many different directions. It is very lucky that I was at a customer site and not at my own office, because if my boss had been there at that moment, I might have quit my job on the spot.

That was absolute rock bottom for me. I teared up today as I was talking to my friend about it, just remembering all the emotions I was feeling at the time.

It turned out that I hadn't made a terrible impression on the bigwigs -- or if I had, no one said anything or acted badly towards me. I was able to act as their dedicated support person for the next few months, until I moved into my current job, and it kept my travel low and my life somewhat sane.

On the mom front, Maria didn't mind my late pickup at all. And I made it through the last few days before Christmas (and then my remaining months pumping at work) without having to supplement with formula, so there were no long-term ill effects from that day of not pumping enough.

And now... here I am. Happy with my working mom life. If you had told me on that December drive home that I would be here today, I never would have believed it.

I'm so glad I stuck it out.