I’ve been meaning to write about my experience breastfeeding
for a while (I’ve been meaning to write about a lot of things for a while :/)
I’ve had a really great experience nursing, the first six weeks not
withstanding. Megan had been “coaching”
me about breast feeding for years, but had somehow failed to mention that it
HURTS LIKE A MOTHER- pun intended. Once
Layla arrived and I started nursing and complaining that it was killing me one
suck at a time, everyone said to give it a couple of weeks. Couple of weeks my rear-end! Just when I thought it would never stop
hurting, it did and ever since, it’s been pretty smooth sailing.
When I went back to school in January and started pumping, I
stayed a day ahead of Layla. She ate
about 6 ounces while I was at school and I pumped about 6 ounces every
day. I’d get a few extra ounces here and
there but never built a huge supply like some moms I know. I think the most I’ve ever had frozen at once
was about 30 ounces, and that’s what I had when I went back to school two weeks
ago. The only difference is now Layla
eats 10 ounces while she’s with mom and the most I pumped while at school last
week was 5 ounces. I’ve started pumping
in the night again, something I stopped doing over the summer- not that Layla
has stopped eating during the night because she most definitely has not! Last
week I started eating oatmeal and mixing Brewer’s yeast in my oatmeal and in
smoothies. I’ve been able to make up the
difference day by day with night pumping and extra pumping sessions after
school. I am still pretty concerned that
I won’t be able to keep up long term.
Layla will be one (OH EM GEE) November 4th and I am
determined to nurse at least until her birthday. So, when my pump died Friday morning at
school, I kinda freaked out.
I bought my pump from Megan’s friend Elizabeth. Megan used it with Dylan, who is now eight
years old. Elizabeth had used it the
year before. Before I used it,
Elizabeth’s sister had used it, too, so this pump has logged a lot of miles.
It’s an Ameda Purely Yours and I paid $50 for it. I still remember when Megan brought it over
while I was pregnant with Levi and showed me how to hook it up. I thought I’d never be able to remember how
to work the thing. Now, I can hook the
darn thing up in the dark, half asleep.
It stopped working once this summer-at 11:15PM on a night when I really
needed to pump. I yelled for Skip who
had just gone to bed and he came to my rescue.
I’d spilled what I thought was a little milk in the pump bag earlier
that day and it apparently had gotten into the mechanism. Skip took the entire thing apart, cleaned the
motor and by 11:45PM, I was back in the milk pumping business. It’s worked like a top ever since. Until Friday morning.
I pump in my classroom with the door shut. I have a little mini fridge behind my desk
plugged into a power strip. I plug my
pump into the same power strip. When I
plugged it up Friday morning, nothing happened.
I made sure the switch on the power strip was set to ON and tried again.
Nothing happened. I’d just gotten water
out of the fridge (and continued to get cold water out the rest of the day), so
I figured the power strip was working just fine. Megan suggested trying another cord and I
actually had one that goes with my little speaker set to try. It wasn’t the
cord. I figured the pump was done for
and found two on Craigslist each for $50.
I emailed both sellers and went about my business teaching. I got a response quickly and this nice mama
was going to let me pick up the pump from her porch since she wasn’t going to
be home and drop the money in the mailbox.
Just after I asked for her address she offered to meet me at my work,
which I thought was nice but odd considering she’d just offered to leave it on
the porch. I explained that I worked
pretty far away from her home (in Concord) and right as I hit send, I got an
email with her address where I could meet her to buy the pump. Except the “her” was two hers. I had been emailing two people about two
different pumps for about an hour. When
you email a Craigslist seller, the email is generic and just a bunch of
numbers. This is what happens when you
try to wheel and deal on Craigslist while teaching a subject you’ve been
teaching for a total of four days. Anyway, I went with the lady who was willing
to meet me half way, got a sweet teacher down the hall to cover the last 25
minutes of my class and headed out the door (with some very full ta-tas I might
add).
On the way to meet, it hit me I would need cash. I had $20, so I texted mom to see if I could
borrow $30 from her to avoid stopping at the bank. She, of course, had cash and said yes, so I
stopped at her house, got the cash (and Layla) and kept going. On the way, I decided to merge mom’s cash
with mine and realized she’d just given me $26- a $20, a $5 and a $1. I figured
she thought the $1 was another $5. I
decided I’d just tell the lady that I could write her a check for the rest or
buy her something at the gas station.
Turns out, she was happy with $46 and didn’t mind being cheated. I checked the pump with the car adaptor (like
Megan told me to) and came home to get some relief. The pump looked almost exactly like mine, but
it just didn’t feel the same. All my
parts hooked up to the base easily and it got the job done, but it just felt
different- and not as good as mine. I
decided to try mine at home since it was sitting right there, and wouldn’t you
know, it fired up on the first try.
UNBELIEVABLE. I said a few choice
words, but I was SO glad it worked. I
now think something is/was wrong with the outlet I was using and feel pretty
stupid for not checking that before buying a new pump. In my defense, I was going on my water being
cold indicating that my power strip was in working order. The silver lining is now I can have one pump
for home and one pump for school instead of looking like a pack horse carrying
a pump, a purse, and a school bag to and from every day. And, I’ve never had a
car adapter and now I do. Skip is going
to take the new-to-me pump apart and give it a tune up like he did my first
one.
I should also share that when I got home, I found $4 in my
pocket! At first I thought it was from
school and then I realized that it was the rest of the $30 that mom had given
me and that I am the crazy one who cannot count and not her. The first week of
school does some crazy things to teachers, let me tell ya!
