How I made pumping at work… work

Pumping at work is hard! Here is what I did to make it work for me.

When I was seven months pregnant with my first baby, I was working at a small tech startup. At the same time another new mom had recently returned to work after 3 months of maternity leave. She and I chatted regularly about pregnancy, birthing, and breastfeeding. One day after she had been back at work for about a month, I walked in on her sobbing in the bathroom. She proceeded to tell me all of her struggles and barriers to pumping at work without a designated room. She was crying because she had almost totally lost her milk production and felt completely defeated, helpless, and worst of all, as a failure as a mother. She was forced to find other ways to feed her baby when all she wanted was to breastfeed.

While I felt deeply saddened for her, as she had become a friend and confidant, I began to think about what I was going to do. How was I going to make sure this didn’t happen to me and my baby? I always imagined that if I could breastfeed, that I would do it exclusively. I didn’t really know what I was in for, but it sounded like something that I was going to have to prepare for.

I have this amazing older sister, who raised two boys mostly on her own while working full time and she somehow managed to breastfeed and pump for the first 12 months for both of her kids. She has always played the role of groundbreaker in my life. In many ways she has set the standards that I try to achieve or beat. I mean I can’t let her be better than me at everything. So, I was motivated to make breastfeeding work for me.

I remember, vividly, calling her later that same day and asking her advice. “What can I do?” “How did you handle pumping at work?” She had some good stories about pumping in the office and traveling for work. But, a lot of it didn’t really pertain to my situation because she worked for much larger companies than I did at the time. She gave me one last piece of advice before hanging up the phone. She suggested I look up what the law says on the matter. A quick Google search led me to the Department of Labor website. It very clearly states that any employer with 50 or more employees are required to provide “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after the child’s birth each time such employee has need to express the milk.” Employers are also required to provide “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.”

As luck would have it, we had just hired employee number 51 a month earlier, so I was ready to march into the HR office and demand my mother’s room! I took my newfound legal knowledge and went into the HR office and said “hey, we have 51 employees now, 1 nursing mom and 2 pregnant moms to be. You are required to build us a mom’s room. The response was, “sure… but where?”

Well, I am not a building contractor and I didn’t know the ins and outs of the office building other than the places that I frequented for my job. So, I got tacet agreement that we needed a room, but now I needed to help figure out how to make it a reality. They asked for my input about where to put a room, but to be honest I had no idea what was even possible. I figured if my suggestions cost $50k in construction they would say no. I didn’t know what construction costs were so I had no idea what to suggest. There was some brainstorming, but after a while it was decided that they would clean out the janitorial closet that happened to be inside the ladies restroom for a mom’s room.

I knew deep down that this wasn’t ideal but I was just so happy that there was a room and a plan in place. I went on maternity leave and returned to work. You can see one of my earlier posts on returning to work from maternity leave to understand more about that experience. It wasn’t until I spent a few days pumping that I realized the drawbacks to this particular pumping room plan.

First, there was no lock on the inside of the door. It only locked from the outside so whenever anyone came into the restroom I had the fear that they would walk in on me in this very vulnerable position. Second, the room had a flickering fluorescent light, which did not make for a very relaxing experience. Remember it was a janitorial storage closet. Third, and most prevalent, in order to clean my pump parts I had to go out into the bathroom and use the same sink that everyone uses to wash their hands after they use the bathroom.

When you think about it, most first time moms don’t take their babies out of the house for at least 2 weeks for fear of germs. They make all visitors wash their hands before touching their baby, they painstakingly do research before every vaccine, they meticulously wipe down everything that their baby touches in and out of the house and sterilize all bottle, pump and pacifier parts. To have to wash the pump parts that touch your baby’s only source of food in a sink covered with public bathroom germs?!?!? There is definitely something wrong with this situation.

For better or for worse that is where I pumped 2 to 3 times a day for 13 months. Shortly after that, and unrelated to this story, I was ready to move on to my next job. My husband and I were planning to have another baby but knew that we would have to wait until at least 3 months after I started my next job to qualify for FMLA. So, I specifically looked for an employer that touted the Texas Mother Friendly Worksite logo on their website, which I had heard about from a neighbor. This way I wouldn’t have to create my own room for pumping… or so I thought.

Three months after I started my next job I learned I was pregnant with my second baby. I was extremely happy that they already had a nice pumping room with a fridge and a sink, a comfy chair and calm lighting. They even had a cute corporate logo onesie framed on the wall for décor.

I went on Maternity Leave and returned to work to find that there were no less than 8 ladies sharing the use of this one room. Do the math… 8 moms, each pumping for about 30 minutes 2–3 times per day. It just didn’t add up. I happened to have a wonderfully supportive manager at the time. I confided in him about the issue. He made some suggestions including to go to HR to ask them to provide a second room. He offered his help as I needed it. If you have ever experienced a male ally in the workplace then you know how helpful it can be to have one. But that is another article for another 4am feeding.

I wrote to HR and copied all of the other pumping moms on the email. They agreed that there was a problem and wanted to help. They suggested I set up a time for us to look at the existing room together to brainstorm how we could make the room work for more than one mom at a time. I was willing to indulge them but was skeptical that it would work.

The next available appointment time was over a week away. I scheduled it but reminded them that every day that goes by, some of us are having to find alternate arrangements. Some worked from home. Some pumped in a bathroom stall, some in their car, some in their boss’s office. Our babies’ nutrition was a stake! We were going to do whatever it took to maintain our milk supply and take care of our bodily needs.

The scheduled appointment time finally arrived and they came prepared to tell me that there was no other room in the whole three story building that they could offer. They suggested that we buy curtain rods to divide the room in half. Then two moms could be in there at the same time. Well, this was better than nothing. But there were several things wrong with this scenario.

First of all, we, the moms, were told to buy all of the rods, curtains, etc… to divide the room. Not the facilities team, the full time working, sleep deprived moms with newborn babies at home. Not to mention that a curtain does not provide the privacy that one would want while pumping. It also now eliminated the possibility of being on the phone while in the room which reduces the possibility of getting some work done or FaceTiming with your baby if possible.

Logistically it was hard too. If one mom started before the other, the second mom was locked out of the room, since it locked from the inside. Or if one finished before the other the first mom either had to wait for the second mom to finish, or leave the other mom in the room with the door unlocked.

But, I persisted. I measured the room, shopped around for curtain rods, purchased all supplies and materials and waited three weeks for all of it to arrive. This meant three more weeks of moms finding alternate places to pump. Once everything arrived I realized that I needed the facility team to do the installation. I didn’t have the ladders, drills, or skills necessary to do the job. I waited another week to get on their schedule.

The day finally came. They were ready to do the installation. However, as soon as they arrived to do it they noted a rather formidable road block. It was against fire code to put a divider up in a room without installing another sprinkler in the fire system. So… back to the drawing board.

Some of us moms were ready to revolt! It was time to pull out the big guns and go back to the Department of Labor website. I emailed the link to HR where it clearly states “Employers are required to provide … a space to express milk as frequently as needed by the nursing mother”. It stands to reason that if their one room is not enough for all of their nursing mothers to express milk as frequently as needed, they were required to create an additional space. At the same time I asked my ever supportive male ally manager to advocate for us to HR. Before the day was out, he walked down to HR, did his magic, and the very next day a conference room on the third floor was made available to us full time as a second mother’s room. There was no sink and I had to buy the fridge and accessories needed to block out the windows myself. But they did change the door knob to one that would lock from the inside (about a week later).

We were all so thrilled to have a second room, we were willing to ignore the fact that we occasionally had to walk through the mostly male occupied sales floor with our milk and pump parts in hand to either move from one pumping room to the other or to go to the sales team’s kitchen to clean our parts. Again, cleaning parts that touch our precious liquid gold in a communal kitchen was not exactly the sanitary conditions we hope for.

For a variety of unrelated reasons I left this employer about a year after having baby number two. I was still nursing and pumping but was beginning the weaning process. Since I knew I was ramping down, finding an employer who had a dedicated mom’s room wasn’t as high on my list of priorities anymore.

My new and current employer did have a pumping space because there was another employee pumping at the time that I started. However, it was also less than ideal. It did lock from the inside, and had a fridge, but no sink. The biggest drawback was that the room was inside another conference room. Literally I had to walk through a meeting in progress to get to the pumping room and then just ignore the fact that everyone could hear the pump through the walls during the rest of the meeting. The comical part of it all was that I would finish up pumping and walk out during a different meeting with a whole different group of people.

I didn’t know if I was going to have another baby and even if I did, I didn’t know if it was going to be while I was with this employer. However, during my time at this company I co-founded the company’s women’s group and became a voice for the female employees and for inclusion of all kinds, including parents and nursing moms. Also a woman on my team, announced she was pregnant with her first baby. I saw this as my opportunity to do some advocating of my own. This time it wasn’t for me, but it was for all of the future pumping moms at this company who didn’t know what they were in for yet.

I put together a presentation for executive leadership that included the business case for supporting pumping moms. It also included information on the Texas Mother Friendly Worksite certification program and detailed how having this designation would help in our efforts to attract more diverse job candidates. In theory, they were bought in. I had successfully created the awareness and presented the case. But I found myself yet again in the situation of answering the question “but where can we put the room?”

I went to our Facilities Manager, HR and some extremely helpful executive assistants (they know all) and found three possible spaces. One of the possibilities was a conference room on the third floor. According to the floor plans there was some plumbing nearby due to an already functioning prep kitchen on the same floor. So all we needed now was an estimate of what it would cost to run some pipe into the conference room and install a sink. That is of course if I could get everyone to agree to give up one of our precious few conference rooms for this noble cause.

After the facilities manager and I met with a couple of plumbers, we had an estimate. And miraculously it wasn’t too outrageous! So I put together a budget proposal that included the plumbing costs, the cost of the sink, some décor and furniture. I referenced the requirements for the Mother Friendly Worksite designation and made sure that there was enough money in my budget request to cover everything needed to get the certification.

I went back to executive leadership with the proposed space and budget requests and was approved! This speaks a lot to the quality of the leadership. I was impressed that they were willing to make this happen without too much fuss.

Several weeks went by with several visits from the plumber (have you ever known a plumbing job to go smoothly and as expected?) and finally the sink was installed. I purchased all of the furniture and décor and all things required to achieve a silver level certification. With the help of the Facilities team assembling furniture and changing the lock to be an inside lock and hanging curtains over the windows, we were able to get the room ready and the certification achieved before the woman on my team returned back to work from maternity leave.

This included writing the company’s breastfeeding support policy. I found a template online and used it to write one specifically for us. It passed through HR without a problem. They now review it as part of their annual policy reviews.

Meanwhile, two more women announced their pregnancies and the room became even more necessary.

A few months later I found out I was pregnant with baby number three. What a relief to know that there was already a dedicated space. Check! Didn’t have to worry about that. Or so I thought…

Shortly after I announced to my team that I was pregnant, the company announced that they were moving to a new building. Insert eye roll here.

Luckily the ground work had already been paved. There were women actively using the existing mother’s room and the company took it upon themselves to ensure that there would be a dedicated and plumbed space with a sink in the new building. My only interaction with the planning of the mom’s room in the new building was consultative. I did not have to drive this one. Whew! What a load off! When I went on Maternity Leave for baby number three I did so with the knowledge that I would come back to a place with an existing, comfortable, clean, and dedicated mom’s room already waiting for me.

It has been quite a journey but one that I would gladly take again. The cause is just and the need is very real. Being a new mom is hard enough, why not make it a bit easier on your nursing mom employees. Send them the message that you value them and care about them by providing the dedicated pumping space for them before it becomes a need.