The Working Mom’s Lament
I’m not complaining. Really.?But it does suck to be a working mom sometimes. I’m up half the night nursing. I rally at seven (fine, maybe 7:30), stagger into the shower, out to make tea. Rush the baby to the nanny,?rush back home?to plan class. Pump. Wash the pump. Pack up the pump. Pack up the class notes. Head to BART. Get to school. Photocopy. Teach. Pump. Teach some more. Leave. Pump again at home. Wash the pump. Pump. Pump again. And again. And again.
My Medela Pump In Style?has become a wizened old thing, with a dangerous teaser of mold in the tubing (pipe cleaners, stat!), dried breast milk and dust adorning the stylish black carrier bag, and the bottle labels worn clean from four daily washings (let alone the twice-a-week-which-is-way-less-than-they-recommend sanitizing). My Medela, a gift from a friend, is my constant companion; I perseverate, while I’m teaching, about forgetting it in the classroom or leaving it on BART. I blindly sense its presence, glancing down to make sure it’s right where I left it in the middle of a lecture on “theme” or “sensory details.” If I lost the breast pump, then where would I be?
Turgid. My breasts would be turgid. And the baby might?have to drink formula?(gasp!).?
Breast pump parts drying in plastic “grass,” one of the few baby purchases I have made (and adore) this time around.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m certainly not above formula. Baby S has consumed some in his day. But since I have these knockers that have been producing pretty well, and a baby with a champion latch (my friend said we should do a breastfeeding video!), and a whole lot of propaganda reminding me that “breast is best,”?I might as well use what nature gave me.?A working mom can only produce so much, however, and it is a little-known phenomenon (someone please tell me this happened to them, too?) that when the baby drinks from a bottle he drinks much more heartily.
To wit: In a day and a half, pumping three times a day and at?night, glass of wine be damned,?I produce three bottles. The next day while I’m at work? He might want?four. The math just doesn’t add up. When we’re home together, he’s fine; my boobs satisfy. When I’m not there, he’s like a ravenous little shark, demanding more, more, more (see above, under “the miracles of formula in a pinch”).
Working mom makes lunches for everyone.
And so, readers, I pump. I enter the “Nursing Moms Room” at school, praying a student doesn’t pound on the door after spraining her ankle on the stairs, mistaking the meaning of “nursing” in this context (this happened last week). I hike up my dress. I situate the pump, plug it in. Attach the flange to the yellow doohickey to the white doohickey. Turn it on. Pop ‘er on. Scroll through my phone if I can get a hand free. I have twenty minutes for this adventure, plus any time I might need to, say, pee, or make a photocopy, or eat a bite of lunch. God forbid I need to?eat some lunch!
And when I’m done, I pull the dress back down, hopping around on one foot struggling with the zipper on the back (why did I wear this trickily-zippered empire-waist?dress that’s tight across the chest? Oh right, because it hides my postpartum?belly fat). I pack my breast milk into my handy freezer bag, and head back to the classroom, a tiny bit disheveled and hoping?I don’t look like I just had a quickie in the hall with a stranger (I assure you, class, my breasts were engaged in a different pursuit). I teach, perseverating on the breast pump stowed beneath the desk.
I'm working from the premise that motherhood is not just all diapers, tantrums, and setting limits. It's interesting. Okay, sometimes. 