The one thing I hated when I returned to work from maternity leave was pumping at the office. The company I worked for at the time actually had pretty nice "Nursing Rooms" for the working moms. I always found it a little strange that they called them "nursing rooms" since there wasn't onsite childcare or babies that we were nursing. Oh no. We were pumping. Two partitions in each room. One room in each of the four buildings. When I returned to work, there were five other nursing mothers in my building. We actually kept a mini schedule so that we didn't go to the room when the spaces were already filled.
I hated pumping for a dozen different reasons. Partly because it feels very inhuman and awkward. Nursing was natural. Pumping was just weird. The clean-up afterwards was always a pain. Wiping down all the parts. Trying to be discreet about the bottles of breastmilk in the re-usable lunchbag in the community fridge. Having to explain to idiot men that the bag wasn't another laptop without wanting to shout at them "I still breastfeed my kid and this is BREAST PUMP!"
But the biggest reason I hated pumping was that I just didn't have the time at work to pump. Carving out 20-30 minutes in the morning and afternoon was nearly impossible. I remember on more than one occasion trying to discreetly hold in my swollen breasts during a meeting - silently praying that I wasn't going to start leaking. Oh boy, wouldn't that have be awkward. More awkard than answering the "You have two laptop bags?" question.
So when I stumbled across this experiment from Dad Labs, I nearly fell off my chair. They prove that pumping is no fun. I totally agree. Any mother that pumps deserves a medal of honor. I'll take my superhero cape in Caribbean Blue, please.
