Pumping Story

I’ll be honest. I thoroughly enjoyed breastfeeding, but I never expected to one day be sitting on the grimy floor of a supermarket bathroom squirting milk out of my overly full breasts. That would have been a hard pass for me in the Places To Pump Department, and I had already found myself pumping on the sweaty seats of a high school bus at a cross country meet as the bus driver blocked teenagers from climbing aboard a few weeks earlier. Nevertheless, that September day there I was crouched on the ground desperately squeezing the milk out.

I need to back up a bit before arriving to how I got in that situation on that particular day. By the time September rolled around I was in my 8th month of breastfeeding and pumping. It had been going well. Breastfeeding had been delightfully easy from the start (Cue eye roll and the chorus of, “Must be nice,” from all the cracked nipples and engorged women out there).

That said, I wasn’t ready to relinquish the power my boobs had quite yet, but I wouldn’t have argued if given a break from the constant need to have someone suckling on me for nourishment, even for only a few days.

The opportunity presented itself when a friend of mine announced he was getting married near San Francisco in September. My husband and I didn’t debate long.

We booked our flight. We were excited, but as the trip quickly approached, I began to get anxious about being away from my son and breastfeeding.