The Business Trip

by Katy Conway

My husband and I live in Atlanta, Georgia and we welcomed a new baby girl (our first child) into the world on October 15, 2000. As we had planned, I would stay at home with her for 16 weeks and would then return to work on a full-time basis. When the sad day rolled around, I reluctantly returned to work as planned. Upon my return, I was still exclusively breastfeeding my daughter. As if things weren't difficult enough, I had to make a business trip to New York City during my first week back at work.

After much deliberation, my husband and I decided that, in order to minimize her time in daycare, I would drop my daughter off in Memphis to stay with my mother during my absence.

Although I used to travel about 90% in my job, never had I spent this much time anticipating and worrying about a trip. Suddenly, I had to devise a world-class logistics plan to incorporate single-handedly getting to the airport (with a lap-top, 2 suitcases, a diaper bag, a cooler of frozen breastmilk, an electric breast pump, a purse and, last but not least, a baby!) in plenty of time but also within the confines of our feeding schedule.

As I conducted my best-impression of a pack mule through the Atlanta Hartsfield airport, we finally boarded the plane, just in time for a feeding that lasted about as long as the flight - ahhh, perfection.

So, I successfully got my daughter (and all of the necessary baby gear) to her grandmother with relative ease and I headed on to NYC. All was going well, and on-schedule according to Page 3, Paragraph 4 and table 2 of my breastfeeding/travel plan. I finally arrived at my hotel in NYC that evening, and was very eager to get to my room and pump for some much needed relief. Because my daughter and I would be separated for 2 days, I was very determined to store this milk and take it home with me (I mean, we're talking about a serious dent in my reserve of "liquid gold"...).

As I checked-in to the hotel, I asked if I could use the hotel's freezer for storage during my stay. It was difficult to be inconspicuous with this conversation, as: a.) it was an odd request and I didn't want to be too specific, and b.) we could've used a translator: read, Ellie May meets Rosie O'Donnell. Being a very nice hotel, the clerk assured me that they would promptly deliver a mini-refrigerator to my room - this was exceeding my expectations!

At long last I got to my room and assembled the breast pump with baited breath. Much to my dismay (and with no emergency plan in place for this one) my pump did not work. Remaining calm, I checked all of the components and tried again - still, no dice. Starting to panic, I disassembled the machine and tried a third time - again, nada. In a panic, I called my husband, who suddenly became the Mr. Fix-It of breast pumps, but still to no avail. At my wits' end, I called room service and ordered 3 beers and a piece of cheesecake with extra whipped cream (OK, this leads to other issues of mine, but back to the story at hand).

After my feast, I fell asleep only to be awakened at 4 a.m. in serious pain. By this time, denial had lifted and I needed to take some kind of action. I tried finding a phone book to contact a hospital and rent another pump or a baby-products store to buy a manual pump. Because this was an upscale hotel, there were no phone books in the room, to encourage the use of the concierge. With no other alternative, I contacted the concierge and explained my dilemma on his voicemail (all without using the word "breast pump" - I just couldn't bring myself to give him all of the gory details).

As I waited for a return call, I examined my pump one more time. Finally, I discovered the problem which was a chipped piece of the pump - and luckily I had a spare! I then proceeded to pump away and wasn't shy with my moans of relief.

I had to laugh when I headed to the office that morning and thought about what my neighbors must be thinking after hearing the mechanical whir of my pump, my groans of relief, and seeing the tray outside my door with emptied beer cans and whipped cream. Maybe they thought I had a lot more fun than I actually did!