Pumping

I've been back to work almost 2 months now (crazy!) and there's just no sugar-coating it: pumping (particularly at work) sucks. Why does it suck? Here are a few of my observations on the topic...

1. Logistics. I work at home 2 days a week, and am in the office the other 3. Pumping at home isn't as bad, but schlepping my pump (AND tubing, AND power adapter, AND ice packs/cooler bag) back and forth every day of the week is kind of a hassle. While I'd love to have another pump to just leave at work, that expense isn't really in the cards for us right now. I do take a couple of bottles and one set of flanges/valves/membranes and leave them in my office for the week (bringing them home for a good sterilization in the dishwasher over the weekend). I also keep a stash of bags (I pump into the bottles and transfer to bags), extra membranes, my manual pump (as a back up!), and a cute tote bag to contain it all at the office all the time. But I still have to remember the daily stuff. And sometimes I forget. And then I end up pumping in my car at home with the car adapter or using the battery back-up when I forget the AC adapter at the office over a long weekend...
2. Privacy. I have been walked in on 5 (FIVE!) times at work. Twice I was pumping in my office after my office-mate had left for the day. The other 3 times I was in the actual pumping room when it happened. It isn't a fancy pumping room - just a spare office that is sometimes used for interviews. But since there are several of us currently (or in the near future) in need of a space, they've designated it a pumping room for the time being. They even let me bring in a mini bar-sized refrigerator that we had sitting in our garage so that those of us who need it can store our milk in there during the day (rather than in the nasty, stinky, community refrigerator in the kitchen next to someone's rotting chicken parmesan from a week ago). It's far from luxurious - there's an ugly desk, an uncomfortable desk chair, and no windows or air circulation with the door shut - but it's better than what some people get, so I consider myself lucky. Except when someone who has no reason whatsoever to be in there (except to use it as a "break" room to talk on their cell phone in private) barges in on me without knocking. There's even a sign on the door that politely says "Please knock." Pumping room or not, if you're in an office environment and there's a closed door that doesn't belong to you, common courtesy would be to knock, right? Apparently not.
3. Fatigue & Supply. Pumping is exhausting. When I first started back to work and was trying to build my supply, I was nursing 2-3 times in a 24-hour period (depending on that day's schedule) and pumping another 5-6 times. On weekdays when I was headed into the office, I would nurse whenever Nathan woke up to eat (usually around 4:45-5:30), get ready for work, and then pump before leaving for the day. I would pump again as soon as I got to work (I have a long-ish commute), and then every 2.5-3 hours while at work (sometimes as many as 4 times during the workday). When I got home in the evening, I would either nurse (if he was ready to eat) or pump again and then nurse later (if he wasn't ready yet). He always gets a bottle as his last feeding before bed (he's kind of fidgety about nursing when he's tired, so a bottle lets us make sure he is actually eating) so I would pump again right before I went to bed. I've never had what I would classify as an "abundant supply" of milk. It's better now than when I first went back to work, but I still have to be careful. I maintain a strict regimen of oatmeal for breakfast every single day (yes - even now that it's summer) and drink A TON of water. If I don't, my supply starts to diminish. I don't have to pump as often anymore, now that he's dropped to about 6 feedings per day (at 4-5 oz. per feeding if it's with a bottle). But I still pump an average of about 4 times a day. And I'm trying to build up a freezer stock for when I have to travel for work in July, so I still try to squeeze in an extra pumping whenever I can (especially on weekends). Pumping - for me - takes about 10-15 minutes. That doesn't include the time to assemble everything and then wash it after. On the days that I'm in the office, I literally have to schedule meetings around when I know I will need to pump. There are some days I feel like I don't get any actual work done because I'm either in a meeting, pumping, or eating/looking for food to keep my energy up so I can produce milk. Add in my commute, and I'm pretty much wiped out by the time I get home on office days. Thank goodness for my twice-per-week work-from-home arrangement - I seriously doubt I could survive going to the office 5 days in a row each week.

So... in summary... pumping sucks. And I knew this going in (my office-mate just weaned and I heard all about it from her in the months prior). But I didn't realize just now much it would suck until I was doing it. And now I get it. So, the question is, how long? How long can I keep this up? I try to leave the answer to this open-ended. Right now, I want to make it to at least 6 months (which is really only about 5 1/2 more weeks). I'm pretty sure I can do that. We'll be starting solid foods around that time, so he won't be relying 100% on breast milk for calories anymore. I'd like to think I will keep it up beyond 6 months, but I don't want to set a firm end date and then be disappointed in myself if I don't make it that long. We'll see how it goes with supply and whatnot when I'm away from him for a few days. I don't know what kind of toll travel and not nursing at all will take on my supply. It might be fine, or it might not. I'm trying to be flexible.

The thing is, as much as I dislike pumping, I'm actually really enjoying nursing right now. I wasn't sure if I would ever get to the place where I would be able to say that. Nursing was difficult for me, in the beginning. And even when it wasn't as difficult anymore, I was tired, stressed about my supply, and more than willing to pump a bottle so Paul could feed him and let me go on to bed. I was also still having to nurse multiple times overnight at that point. These days, he sleeps on average 7-9 hours before waking up to eat around the time I need to be up and getting ready for work. I nurse him and he goes back to sleep for a little while longer. He consumes about 3 bottles during the day while I'm working. I nurse him once more when I get home (or shortly thereafter) and then he has his bed-time bottle. On the weekends, we do more nursing than bottles, but still only one that I have to wake up for usually. I think the combination of not doing it around the clock and not having it be so painful has allowed me to relax more when we do nurse. Now I'm able to just sit back and enjoy the snuggle time (he's not a super snuggly baby otherwise, so I take what I can get!). I also really enjoy the occasional early morning when we get to nurse in my bed and then drift back to sleep together.

Will I be glad when I don't have to pump anymore? Yes. Will I be sad to give up nursing eventually? Yes. But I'm not ready to say when either of those will occur. So until then, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing and we'll see what happens...