Pumping

Stefanie Gans
Nov 6 · 2 min read

Note: This was written February 18, 2016. I’m not sure where this essay was headed but it was surely started. Publishing now.

I pull up my shirt, pull down my bra and start pumping.

In the office server room/storage closet I keep my pump, a chair and magazines. I usually just play on my phone, text my husband, catch up on Beyoncé videos, etc.

I also look at pictures and videos of my baby. Mostly I smile. Rarely I cry.

Back to work for almost three months, I am still figuring it all out. I assume I’ll never find an ease in working and mothering. They two hardly mesh.

The morning of my first day returning to work I looked at my little girl and my insides screamed: I’m giving my baby to a stranger.

Just the day before at a new moms group I told everyone I was ready to go back. I wasn’t meant to only rear a child in the solitude of my house. I loved my professional life as a dining editor and restaurant critic at a magazine. I had zero idea how to make it work. But I would.

And then I woke up and my baby smiled at me and I lost it. I was shocked by my grief. I felt completely gutted. My only comparison to that same feeling was the day of my beloved grandmother’s funeral when I was to go to her now, and forever, empty house and retrieve something for my mom. It was like the insides of me fell out and I was a hole. My body no longer contained a soul. I was gutted.

In the shower that morning before I had to dress my daughter for daycare is where I could no longer keep it in.

Heaving, earth-shattering sobs poured out of me. So loud, over the steam of water, my husband came to check on me.

Stefanie Gans

Written by

Director of Talent & Culture at Cookology / former restaurant critic / mom of two.

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