Felicie's Blog

The breast pump: it can be a breastfeeding mom’s ticket to freedom or her worst nightmare. Naomi de la Torre did a great job of summing up the way many women feel towards their pump in her article “Murdering the Breast Pump”.

While I’ve never felt the same murderous rage as Naomi, I understand the often complicated relationship a breastfeeding mom can have with her pump.

My Avent manual pump and I first met five years ago when I opened up a shiny pink package from my mother- in- law at my firstborn’s baby shower. “It’s so I can feed the baby too”, she explained helpfully, although I noted the agitation in her voice. She didn’t want me, the hippie daughter- in-law who intended to breastfeed, to be the only one who could feed that little one. I understood and dutifully brought the pump home with all of the receiving blankets and sleepers I had received.

I didn’t really think about the pump until baby number one got past the six week mark and I felt that we could safely try her with a bottle while avoiding nipple confusion. I opened the package, assembled it without too much hassle, and tried to pump. Much to my dismay, no milk came out!

I tried pumping more quickly, then more slowly, but nothing worked. I started to panic. The awful thought rushed through my mind that perhaps I had been starving my baby for the past six weeks and maybe there really wasn’t any milk in my breasts after all. Of course the anxiety only made the problem worse.

Just as I was about to collapse on the living room floor in tears of frustration and give up on this breastfeeding thing once and for all, my hubby, who had been watching the whole ridiculous affair, offered to help.

All hope lost, I sat on the couch and let him have full access. Now my hubby is an engineer- pumps and compressors- that’s his thing. He’d been watching the assembly of the pump with interest and had commented on the various valves and such. He started pumping with this “pump, pump, hold” sort of action and would you know it- milk started flowing right out into the little bottle attachment! I relaxed and even more milk flowed out. Before I knew it there was a full bottle of my own breastmilk!

Then, I went to Costco for an hour to celebrate (I know it sounds sad, but I hadn’t been out of the house for six weeks).

While I was gone, baby took the bottle like a pro and fell fast asleep!

After that my pump and I had a pretty casual relationship. I would dust it off once in awhile if I wanted to have a night out or go somewhere during the day.

For a little while we got really serious: I used it daily when I went back to school for a term. I would pump in the morning after feeding baby and store the milk in those handy breastmilk storage bags. We got to know each other real well that winter.

We took a much needed extended break when baby number two came along. She never did take a bottle (that’s a story for another day).

So it had been a long time when I became reacquainted with my old pump after standing in a friend’s wedding one night last year. When I stumbled in at almost midnight, I hadn’t nursed for about 12 hours. I was desperate, but didn’t want to wake a sleeping baby.

I dug out my old pal and after a few minutes of “pump, pump, hold” action, I managed to pump off an astounding (and painful!) 12 ounces of milk from each breast! No wonder my bridesmaid’s dress had gotten progressively tighter! Needless to say, the pump and I had a happy reunion that night!

Any love/hate breast pump tales to share?