Knock Those Walls Down (Pumping at Work)

I knock down walls every time I pump.

I’m not a making sweeping statement of personal empowerment here. I just actually knock down walls.

My work’s pump room has movable wall partitions that enable us to pack 3 pumping women in a space that would otherwise be suitable for an intern and a small office plant. I can settle into my chair, whip my shirt over my head, and unclip my nursing bra’s front flaps without bothering anyone other than myself (ugh, it’s cold in here!). But the move where I have to strap on the hands-free pump bra — the elbows-splayed reach-around maneuver where I’m leaning forward to center the bra on the back of my spine — knocks the walls down every time.

I guess I have a large wingspan, shoulder to elbow?

This moment, each time, encapsulates the death-by-a-thousand-papercuts that is pumping at work. It’s not the fact that I have to leave my desk, my team, and my dignity behind for 30 minutes, 3 times a day. It’s that while I’m simultaneously worrying about whether I’m making enough milk and whether I brought the correct number of pumping parts today and whether I’m too sleep-addled to do my job well and whether my baby is currently doing okay at daycare and whether this whole work-life balance notion is even worth pursuing, I also have to worry about my office’s physical infrastructure.

I mean, for crissakes.

Yet… I do and I will and I’ll just keep building and knocking down those walls so that I can continue to pump for my baby alongside other mamas who are making the same set of choices.

Put that way, I guess there is some personal empowerment in this story.

Knock those walls down, Mamas. Do what you have to do.

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