I am not a good pumper. I work outside my home, so I have to pump in order to maintain my nursing relationship. But I am not good at it. I cannot count the number of times I have wanted to give up. I also cannot count the number of times I have sobbed before, during and after pumping; the times I have been inconsolable in defeat and grief.
Pumping is inconvenient. You have to stop whatever you're doing, plug in the machine, take off your shirt, outfit your breasts with these terrible plastic things that turn your breasts into a shape that would never exist in nature. You have to assemble the valves, attach the bottles, adjust your pumping bra.... and then you can turn on the machine and listen to it for the next 45 minutes while your nipples are tugged at in a ridiculous manner. When you're done, you have to wash all those parts, and there are lots of them and they are tiny with lots of crevices.
To do all of this, you have to remove yourself to a private place. That means announcing to others, "I'm sorry I must leave this meeting. I have to pump." and you say it apologetically as if you owe an apology for something your body must do. You will plan your day around pumping, accept or reject invitations to meetings based on pumping. Your will ask your coworkers to cover for you more times than you care to count (mine always cover for me because they are the best women in the world and they never give me any flack for it). Hopefully you work somewhere that has a private place for you to pump. My office is private, but if I'm in public, there are zero guarantees. I have found myself many times on the floor of a bathroom, next to the sink or the trash can, wherever the outlet is. Gathering food for my baby, in a bathroom, on the floor. My husband has suggested that I publicly shame these places on Facebook. Someday I might start.
Sometimes, even if your pumping place is private, someone will still barge in on you. A closed door means nothing to people. I finally made a sign for my office that says "Pumping in progress, please mooove along." because I want to be nice, but also, move the hell on. It has a round little cartoon cow on it and I do not feel ironically about it. Even with the sign, I have been interrupted, so now I put it right over the door knob. No one can open the door without moving that little cartoon cow and now they stay out, or at least knock first.
Add to all of this that the pump is not very efficient at getting milk. So you sometimes have to "massage" to get the milk flowing. I use quotation marks because for me, "massage" has meant "pushing milk out against all odds." I have bruised myself, my breasts, to get more milk. Just one more drop. Just another half an ounce. Push, push, push, drip, drip, drip.
Because you always need more milk. The daycare workers used to practically chant it at me "more milk more milk more milk more milk." Some people say their pumps talk to them. That's what my pump says: "more milk more milk more milk more milk" ad nauseum. You hear women call it "liquid gold" in a half-joking, half-deadly serious tone, because it is precious and you always need more. More milk, more milk, more milk.
So to get more milk more milk more milk, you will do superstitious things, anything someone suggests. I have eaten more oatmeal than any one person should ever be forced to eat. I have baked cookies, chugged Gatorade, and Kool-Aid, and coconut water (which is worse than oatmeal, even). My husband joked that I was going to give myself diabetes in an attempt to get more milk. I have swallowed hundreds of tablets of Fenugreek and blessed Thistle. I have created strange superstitions about when I should drink water, trying to time it just right to maximize that milk.
The milk became for me a symbol of my abilities as a mother. I measured myself and my worth against those graduated increments on the bottles, and I came up short time after time. I judged myself because I was not some kind of Lactation Goddess, milk pouring unfettered from my breasts. Pumping became an obsession. I could not focus on anything else if it was time to pump. I rushed through time with my husband and baby so I could pump. These were dark days for me. The bottles would be short, and I would beat myself up. Milk got wasted at daycare and I was inconsolable. The couple of times I had to pour milk down the drain, I experienced real grief. I counted the dwindling number of bags of frozen milk in my freezer like Dexter counted his blood slides.
I went to a therapist. We talked about how my obsession with milk was affecting my every day life, how I was attempting to will my breasts into submission, how maybe I should stop pumping. But I couldn't talk rationally about any of it. I called my lactation consultant for advice, and when she suggested pumping for longer times, I did it. I would have eaten a cat turd if someone said it would make more milk more milk more milk. My inability to pump copious amounts of milk became my biggest source of guilt, my biggest sore spot, my biggest place of mom-failure.
It doesn't help that the failure is so literal and right in my face. When I need 4 ounces of milk, and I can only force 3.... the failure can't be any more obvious. It is a clear place in my life where I have a goal and I come up short, and there's no hemming and hawing about it. The writing's on the bottle.
Compounding that guilt is the fact that I have to admit that I can do all of this because I am privileged enough to do all of this. I had a lactation consultant to call. I had insurance that covered the cost of my pump, and a rad friend to loan me another one when that one wasn't doing the job. I have a boss and coworkers who support me. I have a job that gives me flexibility. I have a private office where I can pump. I have a daycare that will give breast milk to my daughter. I have a regular schedule and I don't work manual labor or food service. I have a reliable and clean place to store pumped breast milk. As far as working mamas go, I've got it pretty dang good. Knowing my privilege just complicates my relationship with pumping even more.
I belong to a group of mamas online, and they are smart, funny and wonderful women. And we talk a lot about pumping and the struggles we have with it. And I find it hard to give good advice, because my relationship with pumping is a mess. So I try to tell them "I hear you. It sucks and I hear you." because I don't know what else to say.
I wish someone had warned me: pumping sucks...it might be hard for you...it might not happen like you imagine it. I don't know if I would have listened anyway.
My initial pumping goal was a year. Working with my therapist, I have revised that to six months, which I have already achieved. I don't feel the darkness I felt even just two months ago. I still feel pressure, and I still follow those superstitions, and I still "massage" but I don't obsess any more. Now, every day I continue gets to be a victory. One more day that I didn't give up. I don't know how I got here for sure. It took a lot of serious conversations with my husband, my therapist, my friends and my online mamas.
Pumping and I are working it out; but it's one day at a time.
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