AW: Reflecting on a year of pumping

Sep5Bride

Tomorrow DD turns 13 months, and tomorrow I will also be pumping at work for the last time. She is still nursing in the morning and at night for the time being, but stopping pumping still feels like a big milestone for me. I was thinking back over the past year of pumping, and felt the need to give myself a little pat on the back for all the effort that went in to keeping it up! This is long, you don't have to read it, but I felt like sharing.

Where I work, it is seemingly very uncommon for people to pump. I had to talk to quite a few people before I found a place to pump, and even then the best option was a bathroom. (I know, not really legal, but it was truly better than the other options given.) Then a big renovation project started, and I spent a couple months walking through the construction site to my little bathroom to pump among the jackhammers and hardhats. Then my bathroom was torn down, and it was back to the drawing board. I was advised to use an empty patient room (I worked in a nursing home), and then eventually got kicked out of that because it wasn't considered sanitary. Finally I was given a private meeting room, but it had no lock on the door so I had to make a sign to hang when in use.

Just when I had everything set up pretty well, I changed jobs. For the first two months I was in orientation, which basically meant traveling around with other employees (their schedule, their car), and going to multiple different hospitals and training centers. Every day was different, and every day meant a new person (or two or three or four) with whom I had to coordinate a pumping break and location. I found the nursing nook/lactation room/mother's room at 3 hospitals and 4 training centers, and used about 6 different people's private offices. I learned how to pump in my car (which I hate).

I have also given up at least 12%-15% of my salary to accommodate the time needed to pump on a daily basis. (I don't know how much formula costs, but BF was definitely not a cost-savings for me!)

And with all of that, I still feel a little sad to be stopping.

I know there are a lot of moms here on the bump who have made similar sacrifices to provide for their children (and some much more extreme). I think we all deserve a little pat on the back.