When C was 6 months old, I had to go back to work. Although I was returning full time (a part time position in my job would mean working full time for a lower salary), I was able to spend two days a week working from home. C would go to nursery while I was in the office, and I would juggle her and my job the rest of the time. (I say ‘the rest of the time’ rather than ‘the other two days’ as this kind of arrangement inevitably spills over into evenings and weekends.)
Her tender age meant that milk was still her main source of nutrition, and I quickly realised I was faced with a dilemma: express milk at work, or switch to formula during the day. If I didn’t pump in the office, my supply could drop to the extent that I’d struggle to feed her myself on the days I was a home, and I’d also find it hard to express enough milk to give her for nursery.
I appreciated that pumping at work wasn’t necessarily an easy option, however. The most pressing concern was the location – where on earth was I going to do it? I didn’t really fancy a toilet or shower cubicle, and I couldn’t think of any obvious alternatives. I was aware that recent legislation requires employers to provide a suitable space for nursing mothers to express, but I seriously doubted that this had been tested in my (predominantly male) workplace before. Although I was right about this, it turned out that I needn’t have worried. The head of admin had breastfed herself, and was completely sympathetic to my predicament. Admittedly, she had to think for quite a while before she came up with what was basically a broom cupboard, but as it was a lockable broom cupboard, I wasn’t going to complain.
So far, I’ve been managing to express milk virtually every day I’ve been at work, although scuttling in and out of the pump cupboard makes me somewhat self-conscious, as there is no obvious reason why I would want to spend 20 minutes in there every lunchtime. I question myself regularly about why I’m so worried about being ‘caught’ going in there, and have come to the conclusion that it’s basically because I don’t want to encourage anyone at work to think about my boobs, especially not in the inescapably undignified process of being milked. I don’t mind people knowing I breastfeed C, but I’d rather not have to explain about the pump.
Storing the milk therefore requires a certain amount of nonchalance. Whilst my colleagues are all liberal, intelligent people, I’m not really inclined to advertise the fact that I’m keeping my bodily fluids in the communal food storage area. Instead, I simply walk in each afternoon avoiding eye-contact and put an odd-looking package directly in the refrigerator. (To disguise the bottle, I’ve ended up wrapping it in several layers of plastic grocery bags, and although this does effectively obscure its appearance, it also looks rather strange.) Whether anyone has guessed what I’m doing I don’t know, but as yet, they’ve been too polite to ask.
The Truth About Breastfeeding 