Always a Bridesmaid, Sometimes a Breast-Pumper
"I was a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding just six weeks after my daughter was born. By the time the ceremony was over and the rounds of photographs had been taken, I really needed to pump. Seeking some privacy, I checked out the ladies' room at the reception hall, but alas, there was no electrical outlet. I tracked down a staffer, who pointed me in the direction of the only private room with an outlet: a storage closet. I was a little nervous about locking myself in there and getting stuck amid the shelves of fake floral centerpieces, but I figured that I was a bridesmaid—someone would track me down if I was MIA for the Electric Slide. Thankfully, I made it out alive, and then celebrated with a ginormous piece of wedding cake!"
Microwave Mortification
"After pumping at work, I was in our office kitchen, steam-cleaning the pump parts in one of those microwave bags. I had taken the bag out of the microwave and was pouring out the water when a man I didn't know walked into the kitchen, looked at the bag with curiosity, and asked, 'Popcorn?' I said no.
He looked puzzled, so I ambiguously explained that it was a steaming bag. His response: 'Well, whatever it is, it smells delicious!'"
Final Resting Pump
"At my grandmother's funeral, I was separated from my twin infants and needed to pump every two hours. Between reading my grandmother's eulogy and catching up with relatives, I wasn't really thinking about the milk that was filling up in my breasts, but finally my rock-hard boobs could not be ignored. I went to the car and grabbed my pump. Then I cased the funeral home, only to discover there were no viable places to pump. In the bathroom, there was an outlet near the sink, but being in full view of my grandmother's retirement-community girlfriends would have been horrifying. I doubt any of them had ever seen a woman pumping before, and my grandmother didn't deserve that kind of posthumous gossip.
The only possible place was in the funeral director's office. I worked up the nerve to poke my head in and tell him I was nursing and needed to pump in his office. I'm not sure he even understood what I was saying, but he knew enough to clear out with haste. I sat at his desk, sparked up the pump, and let the milk flow while looking at his parking-lot view, funereal-work memos, and kids' photos."
Office-Space Invader
"When it comes to pumping, my office, for the most part, is extremely supportive. There are two small conference rooms that everyone knows I use for pumping; I covered up the windows with huge sheets of paper for privacy. It inconveniences people, because they can't see whether or not the room is in use, but they put up with it.
At any rate, I have established a system of communication with my colleagues, in which I hang Mardi Gras beads on the doorknob when I'm. This has kept people from walking in on me (the doors don't lock)—for the most part. Last week, a phone guy from outside the office charged right in! I yelled that I was in there, but he still walked in and saw me. His jaw dropped, and he turned around and fled. I haven't seen him since—thank goodness!"
Euro Pump
"My friend and I teach at the same high school, and we also gave birth within weeks of each other, just a few months before we were to take 31 students on a summer trip to France and Spain. Pumping was a must, and we thought we had prepared ourselves for the challenge by packing dozens of batteries and small blankets to shield the activity, and by mentally preparing our students. (Oddly enough, even though we teach in a huge dairy-farm community in Ohio, our students are completely grossed out by breast-feeding and pumping.)
We pumped everywhere—even on a full tour bus, which was especially uncomfortable. Hiding underneath a blanket 'tent' while trying to stay attached, with the motor of the pump audible to everyone, made for an interesting ride—not to mention the oddest experience I've ever shared with a friend since we compared the amount and quality of our milk!
However, the Louvre topped the list as the most bizarre place to be sitting on a toilet half-naked while breast milk is extracted from one's body. It's easy to become lost there, so my friend had to make her students sit on a bench under a specific painting until she returned from her pumping excursion.
My friend and I had very different attitudes about pumping overseas: I pumped less to shorten my demand, but she was determined to keep her full supply the entire trip. Yet when we returned, my son latched right back onto the breast, and my supply returned immediately, while my friend's son had basically weaned himself and really fought her about nursing again!"
