Pump and dump
On the unbearable lightness of being apart from my child
Pumping Session #1: Friday, 10 am EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 5
I did it. I left my daughter. I fly across the country to attend the wedding of one of my oldest friends. I land in Philadelphia after a four hour and 50 minute red-eye—a blink of the eye—and grapple with the fact that those hours have put 2869 miles, or a 42-hour nonstop drive on I-80, between my body and hers.
I’m excited for the wedding, which will reunite my group college friends for a couple of days. I’m staying with Natalie, one of my best friends from high school, who also just happens to live in Philadelphia. She and her two-year-old greet me, and together we slowly make our way down the sidewalk (the two-year-old insists on riding her scooter, on which she needs to be pushed) to grab coffee and pastries. Back at the house, I am ready to crash. But before I can nap, it is time for the first of the 15 pumping sessions I’ll need to endure this weekend—15 pumping sessions to match the 15 bottles my daughter will have while I’m away. 15 pumping sessions to ensure my body keeps making as much milk as she demands, even while we’re apart. 15 pumping sessions to gird against the looming threat of involuntary weaning.
Sitting in a velvet arm chair in my friend’s tidy third-floor office, the hum of the air conditioner competing with the whirr of the pump for attention, five ounces of morning milk flow out of me. Feeding my daughter at bedtime the night before feels like a lifetime, or at least 2869 miles, ago. I send a photo of the five ounces to my husband. This is the the most I’ve ever pumped in a single session—almost an entire bottle’s worth. “That’s a lot of milk!” he responds, which is what he says when I walk into the kitchen, still wearing flanges, no matter how much I’ve pumped.
It pains me to pour it down the drain, so I let it sit on the counter for a little bit first, to admire it while I brush my teeth.
Pumping Session #2: Friday, 1 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 8.5
When my alarm goes off, the room feels like it is spinning. I’m in that post-red-eye woozy haze, dizzy with exhaustion. I feel like I could sleep the rest of the day. But first I grope my breasts, which are full.
“Enjoy your freedom!” everyone told me, before I left. I nodded politely. This is freedom? Freedom is not having to set an alarm when you take a nap. I am merely on parole, with swollen breasts in lieu of an ankle monitor, still required to meet five times a day with my parole officer, a blue and white Spectra S1 breast pump.
The fact that I’ve decided not to carry milk back home with me makes pumping feel even more onerous than usual. These minutes and ounces don’t directly correlate to my daughter’s nourishment in the way that they usually do. These pumping sessions are productive, in a literal sense, but carry the weight of futility.
It’s not that flying with milk would be impossible. I have a special thermos that keeps up to 27 ounces cold for up to 20 hours. Breast milk and formula are considered medically necessary and are not subject to the TSA’s 3.4 ounce limit for other liquids. (How generous.) But they’re subject to screening, and having to allow TSA to inspect my bodily fluids for explosives activates in me a very specific flavor of rage that I fear will get me into trouble one day. As if being separated from my baby by nearly 3000 miles is not painful enough to my ancient reptilian brain, I have to let an officious blue-gloved dingbat HANDLE MY BREAST MILK? What a shitty reminder of our dystopic times. My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it. And so I dump my milk down the drain again.
Pumping Session #3: Friday, 3:30 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 10.5
After lunch and hanging with my friends, I retreat upstairs to pump again and get ready for the evening. I felt the weight of the 2869 mile chain connecting me and my daughter clang around behind me as I sweat my way through the humidity of Philadelphia. I don’t remember how I survived East Coast summers with so many years, with a constant film of sweat on my skin. I delight in a long shower under East Coast water pressure (thank you, Natalie and David). I do my pelvic floor exercises. I don’t write or exercise or get my nails done or any of the other things I dreamt of doing with this “free” day. I look at the most recent photos from Ben while I pump. My daughter is eating waffles with her grandma.
Pumping Session #4: Friday, 5:30 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 12.5
I sit down with the pump once more before the wedding welcome party, not sure how late I’ll be out tonight and when I’ll next be able to pump. These late afternoon pumping sessions always feel like a waste of time. I’m lucky if I get two ounces, and it’s only fear of my milk drying up before I am ready that motivates me.
The strangest thing is how little I have to carry this evening. I opt not to bring my pump, and so I bring a little rattan clutch that fits only my phone, my sunglasses, and my lipgloss. My hosts offer me a cold can of seltzer for the walk, which I end up holding against my neck as I walk 30 minutes to a brewery on the other side of Rittenhouse Square. I spent nearly ten years of my life walking by myself through cities, and now, a single walk is worthy of being written about. I can’t remember the last time I went anywhere so unencumbered, without equipment for dealing with baby or canine feces. No diapers, no wipes, no poop bags, no toys, no baby-safe mineral sunscreen stick, no sun hat, no dog treats, no cheerios, no water bottle, no sippy cup, no baby on my hip. I strut through the city like I’m in a Maybelline commercial.
Pumping Session #5: Friday, 10:30 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: I forgot to note? Let’s say around 16
Back at Natalie’s house, my eyes moisten before my milk lets down. I’ve managed tonight, turning my attention to my friends’ babies, wiggling their toes and stroking their foreheads. Their milky smell is similar, but not the same. It is suddenly unbearable to be apart from my daughter, who I just wished good night on FaceTime. She reached out to me, tried to grab me through the phone. I had the very same impulse, and am now cursing the inadequacy of the technology that has left her confused, and me desperate for a hit of her skin against mine. In my tearful haze, I forget to note how much I’ve pumped.
Pumping Session #6: Saturday, 10 am EST
Total Ounces Pumped: ~21
Waking up alone, the distance feels more bearable, knowing my daughter still sleeping on the other side of the country and hasn’t yet awoken, confused by my absence. I linger on the pleasures of the previous night. My friends getting married! My friends’ babies! Walking back across the city from the welcome party, stopping at Target for micellar water and an Italian cafe in Rittenhouse Square for hazelnut gelato. (Is there any greater pleasure for a mom traveling alone?)
I’m trying to keep my breasts on west coast time, and so I’m up for a few hours before I pump. I grab coffee with my friend Maddie and finally meet her sweet son, who is three days older than my daughter. I meet Natalie and her family at the playground. Back at their house, I send Ben a selfie in which I’m holding up the five ounces I’ve collected, wanting to again honor my body’s hard work before it goes down the drain. “Lotta milk,” he responds. Maybe I should bring this home with me…
Pumping Session #7: Saturday, 1 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 24
The book I keep bring with me to the velvet chair remains untouched. Rather than read, I’ve been spending my pumping sessions talking to Ben and looking at the most recent photos of our daughter. She’s drinking bottles in his lap, reaching for the dog from her stroller, and playing her xylohone. I can’t bear the distance and spend the rest of my pumping session switching to an earlier flight from Chicago to SFO. The connection will be tight, but “I WILL BE HOME FOR BEDTIME!!” I text Ben. One fewer pumping session.
Pumping Session #8: Saturday, 3:30 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 27
I pump right before it is time to leave for the wedding, not wanting to have to pump until after the cocktail hour. At the last minute, I decide I don’t want to have to lug my Spectra to the venue and endure the rigamarole of hooking myself up to a machine, and so I pack only my manual pump and some wipes in the little pink insulated bag in which I usually pack my daughter’s lunch. It will be easier to pump in a bathroom stall this way, if that’s my only option. But with my little rattan purse slung across my body, I still feel unencumbered, if somewhat self-conscious to be wearing a strappy dress from which my new boobs are spilling out.
Pumping Session #9: Saturday, 7:30 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 29
It is a gorgeous wedding. The bride and groom’s vows are perfect. The venue is stunning. The food is unbelievable. I sneak upstairs with the little pink bag during the middle of dinner, hoping not to miss any toasts or dancing. I sit in the chair where the bride probably had her make-up done, looking at myself in a full-length mirror and feeling sorry for myself. What a fricken chore this is, what a sorry-ass substitute for cuddling with my baby. How far away I feel from being a bride myself. I post a selfie to Instagram in an effort to feel empowered and so, if I’m being honest, I can get some hits of dopamine to distract me from my pity party.
When the toasts start, I’ve barely collected half an ounce of milk, and so I sneak out of the bride’s getting-ready room to the mezzanine, where I have a full view of the floor below. I try to remember the rules of the stage—if I can see the audience, can they see me? I tuck my breasts behind the doorjamb and keep pumping, while I strain to hear what the crowd is laughing at below. A friend has joined me, and her wearable pump seems to be doing much better than my manual pump, which is woefully inefficient at this time of day. But after 20 minutes, I’m able to stuff my boobs back in my dress more comfortably and return downstairs to dump two ounces of milk down the drain and am ready to dance.
And I dance. I actually dance, for maybe the first time since my own wedding two years ago. (Thank you, pelvic floor therapy!) I actually have fun for the first time in I don’t know how long. I shake my ass! I get low! Low low low low low low low, as Flo Rida sings. My body doesn’t feel identical to the body that once gyrated in former frat house basements with this same group of friends, but it feels at least recognizable. It has grown a baby and birthed a baby and withstood heartbreak and barre classes and hyperemesis, and here it is, knowing what to do when the Macarena comes on. It is incredible. Exhilaration flows through neural pathways that haven’t lit up in a long time.
Pumping Session #10: Saturday, 11:30 pm EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 33
I FaceTime with my daughter in a Lyft on my way home. I promise I’ll be home tomorrow! Mama loves you, I tell her over and over. We reach out to one another. Back in the velvet chair hooked up to the Spectra, I am reassured that my milk has not dried up. One more day, I tell myself.
Pumping Session #11: Sunday, 9 am EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 38.5
I’m all packed and ready to get home. I close my eyes and can smell her. I visualize the smile that will spread across her face when she realizes I am back. I imagine how soft and cool her cheeks will feel against mine when I lift her up when I get home, the wetness of her open mouth when I kiss her, how she will hold my face between the sticky palms of her hands.
I think of a book that a friend of my mom’s gave us called Owl Babies, in which three owlets await the return of their mother. Mommy always comes back, is the book’s refrain. I desperately want to keep this promise.
Pumping Session #12: Sunday, 10:30 am EST
Total Ounces Pumped: 40.5
I make it to the airport in 14 minutes. I’ve only just pumped, but I need to pump again before the flight, wanting to avoid whatever gyrations pumping in-air would require. To find a place to pump, I have to leave the terminal from which my flight is departing, which is mildly infuriating. The first Mamava lactation pod I approach is occupied. I don’t have much time, but see that there is a lactation room and a lactation pod in a food court the next terminal over. I’m one of the fast walkers on the moving walkway. The lactation room requires a code that I do not have, but a sign hangs above a telephone next to the door—call this number for the code, it says. I call. A pre-recorded voicemail gives me a code for the door, which does not work. I wonder who this system is meant to deter from occupying the lactation room and whether it works. I only have 25 minutes or so until my flight boards, and so I hurry to the Mamava lactation pod on the other side of the food court, praying it’s empty. It is. But to unlock it, I need the Mamava app, which I quickly download, only to realize I need a Mamava account, which I quickly create. I am sweating from having crossed the airport in six minutes. I’m finally given a code that works. Unsurprisingly, my milk is disinclined to let down by the time I make it into the pod. But I pump enough to suffer the inconvenience of the fact that there is no sink in the pod, and so I have to cross the food court, this time carrying 2 ounces of milk and a wet bag full of dripping pump parts, wheeling my suitcase with the other hand, to the bathroom to dump my milk and wash my parts. A cleaner makes eye contact with me as I stumble out of the pod with my suitcase and my open container of milk, but offers me no empathy.
Pumping Session #13: Sunday, 1 pm CST
Total Ounces Pumped: 42.5
The small miracle of my horrendous layover in Chicago is that the lactation room is located across from my departure gate, which is next to a Frontera Grill—the only place worth eating in all of Chicago O’Hare. My flight from Philadelphia arrives early, and I quickly place an order at Frontera. For some unknown reason I will come to regret, I order a salad instead of my usual torta. After collecting it, I decamp to the pumping room. This one contains a sink, a cracked leather chair, and an outlet—tiny luxuries for O’Hare—and I plug my phone into the wall and hook myself up to the pump and lean my sweaty back against the cool leather of the chair, refusing to contemplate the other sweaty backs that have touched the same chair today. This little room is my private oasis for a few minutes. I am so. close. to. getting. home. I think I can make it without having to pump again.
Pumping Session #14: Sunday, 4 pm CST
Total Ounces Pumped: 44
The pumping room across from Frontera Grill, which three hours ago felt like my own private Centurion Lounge, now feels like a prison cell. I am back here, after having boarded my flight, taxied to the runway, and waited to takeoff, only to learn that there were 73 planes ahead of us waiting to take off, and that while we were waiting to takeoff, a system on the aircraft had malfunctioned. We were ordered to deplane, and I started to weep, realizing there was no way I would make it home for bedtime.
I’m not optimistic about whether I will make it home tonight, and I wonder if I should just give up and go to my aunt’s house, and try to get on a flight tomorrow morning. But I promised I would be home today. My daughter will have no idea if I break this promise, but I will. If I didn’t have a baby, if I wasn’t pumping, there would be no way I’d wait out this uncertainty in this shitty airport.
Pumping Session #15: N/A
Total Ounces Pumped: 44
Miraculously, we are summoned to the gate to board by 6. I scope out the two bathrooms at the back of the plane, which feel like two of the smallest airplane bathrooms I’ve ever been inside. There doesn’t seem to be room to hold out my arm at the angle necessary to insert a tampon, let alone juggle a volleyball-sized pump and a bunch of plastic parts. There is no counter surface next to the sink. I eye my male seatmates and feel squeamish about handling my breasts and adjusting the angle of my nipples into plastic cylinders in their presence. It feels like a miracle that I will be able to feed my daughter when I get home instead.
When I get home, after greeting my husband and taking a shower, I tiptoe into her room and lean over the crib. I hate to wake her, but have also been waiting for this moment since saying good bye to her three nights earlier. I pat her tushy and she stirs, pushing up on her arms and squinting her little eyes at me like a baby mole. She recognizes me and sits up and starts to clap. Is this the best moment of my entire life? I lift her up and she is rotating her body to my breast before we are even in the chair. It happens so fast I barely have time to appreciate the moment when we click into place and are reconnected as one.