Do I have to say it? I need to pump!

My son Ben was born during the first week back to class at UNCC. I was earning my masters in English and was in the creative writing track. The workshop took place once a week on Wednesday nights. I took the first couple weeks off to recover from my insane delivery and luckily my professor already knew me as a responsible student and allowed me to critique my classmates work at home.

By the time I had to go back to class I finally had the nursing thing down, but I was nursing (or pumping) every hour or two and the idea of being gone from 5:30pm - 9:30pm (class was from 6-9 and I needed 30 minutes to commute, park and walk to class) was going to be a challenge for both me and my newborn baby. The longest stretch he ever went between nursing was two hours. During this crucial time of building up a milk supply I knew I was going to have to pump. Not just before I left and the second I got home (if the baby wouldn't nurse b/c dad would be feeding him a bottle of pumped milk while I was at class) but I was going to have to pump DURING my time at school or else I might become too engorged, start leaking, and possibly end up with a blocked duct or worse an infection.

Part of the commitment to be a nursing mom means having to be comfortable with your body and being assertive. I was neither. I thought about running out to my car during break and using a manual pump, but I'd heard from friends that they didn't work, are a waste of money and hurt. I loved my Double Electric Medela Pump but I didn't think they had outlets in the stalls of the women's bathroom, and I wanted to be able to save the milk I pumped, but feeding my baby milk that I'd pumped in a bathroom stall seemed dirty, germy and gross. I would miss over half the class if I drove back home to pump / nurse so I had to ask for help - from my MALE professor. Yes, he agreed to direct my thesis project, and was even a cool professor but he was still a stranger. I was desperate and afraid of losing my milk supply while it was still so vulnerable, so I did the unthinkable and emailed him.

I asked if during our 15 minute break if I could use the faculty lounge to pump. Actually I didn't say it like that...I don't remember how I phrased it, but I remember laboring over the right words, because words like "breast" coupled with "milk" along with "pump" made me feel uncomfortable. It might have been along the lines of: "I am choosing not to formula feed and I'm afraid of being away from my baby and not being able to feed him while I'm in class. I can't drive home during break so if I can use your office or the faculty lounge until feeding him is established I would appreciate it." However I phrased it, I don't think he quite understood. I came to class with my discreet backpack looking pump and asked him during break if he got my email and if I could use the faculty room. He asked me, "Is your husband here with the baby?" as he looked behind him out the door through the hallway as my peers left the room. I realized he must have thought I wanted to feed my baby in his office! I explained that the baby is home with my husband and that I just need a private place. I'm not sure he still understood, maybe he didn't want to, but he led the way and without a word he left me in privacy. I quickly assembled the bottles and tubes and stored my milk in the handy little cooler and ran back to class.

The next week I brought my pump back to class, but for some reason we were all excused to leave class early :) Allowing the class to go home early continued to just around the time I didn't need to pump anymore. Perhaps I could have influenced the entire class to think positively of breastfeeding if everyone knew why they were going home early!

After nursing my own babies and talking about breastfeeding experiences with so many other women I've become much more comfortable with using words like "breast" and even "nipple" is becoming less awkward. Breastfeeding has helped me become more comfortable with my body, with the female body in general and has forced me to become more assertive.

If nursing is something you want to do, be prepared to have to insist on certain things, refuse to give in to pressure, deal with embarassing situations and be willing to change the way you perceive your breasts.

I'll use this blog to share a quick except from the boobie bible (So that's what they're for!):

"Women in this country forgot how to breastfeed. We got a little weird about breasts, too. They were no longer needed to feed babies, so they went out and got jobs in commercials and Playboy....But the way we feel about breasts is simply our perception of their function. To prove this point, an American doctor tells a story about walking through the wards of a Muslim hospital in Saudi Arabia. He walked in on a group of new mothers who were sitting around talking and breastfeeding their newborns. When they saw a Western male, they freaked. Fabric flew everywhere as the embarrassed women rushed to cover - their heads. Not one of them covered their breasts. In their country, it was their heads and faces that strange men weren't supposed to see. Not their breasts. Heck, those were just like feet and hands to these women" (page 6).