Returning to the Workforce

by Dawn Kelly

After a harrowing 12 weeks of lovingly nursing my first baby, it was time to return to the workforce.

With my freezer stocked with frozen breast milk, I returned to the world of the career minded, armed with my super expensive, nothing but the best for my child, electric breast pump.

I diligently pumped and pumped three times a day in my small but private office, storing my bottles of white gold in a discrete black cooler under my desk.

Inquisitive girlfriends would occasionally ask to view my supply, I would display proudly my Avent Bottles filled with 2oz each of Mom's Best for my little ones daily feast.

In my quest for "Nursing Mother, Working Mother" perfection, I would always work while pumping, so as to not be abusing company time.

Email was the work of choice of course, there was always so much of it and I could easily type and sit up straight while my electric pump work it's magic on my utters...uh, I mean breasts.

One day, happily seated in my office, pumping and typing away, I sense a heaviness on the thighs of my jeans, I feel down to find my jeans are wet and at that moment I realize, I forgot to attach the bottles to the pump and I've been sitting for 10 minutes pumping away onto the thighs of my light blue jeans!

I now have salad plate size wet stains on my thighs and a meeting in 15 minutes.

I'm having a "Nursing Mother, Working Mother"* crisis! I'm frantic, I'm upset that I'm wet, I'm upset that I lost all that milk, I'm upset that I'm absent minded and put my email before my breast milk.

If I can do this what else could I forget about?

After composing myself, and cleaning up the mess, I sat quietly at my desk holding my under-the-desk-heater directly over my thighs blowing them with heat in hopes for a quick dry, which worked surprisingly well I must say.

Making it to my meeting just in time, I sat around the table and thought, how many more months can I do this?

I pumped till my daughter Delilah was 10 months, I had enough breast milk in the freezer to last the final 2 months, by the time she was a year we started Soy Milk.

At 19 Months we are still nursing away. It's worth every quirky moment!