Nursing in the Conference Room

August 22, 2007 | Category: On The Job

A few weeks ago, I went to the BlogHer conference. Being in a male-dominated field like back-end IT, it was an eyeball-popping revelation to be around other corporate mothers.

First thing one of the reps from Yahoo asked me: "Where's the strangest place you've nursed?"

Their stories made me laugh at loud and nod with empathy.

Oh, sister. Sister.

Just having the covnersation made me want to bust out in some choreography from High School Musical.

I needed the conversation.

It was like being liberated from a tight corset I'd been wearing so long I'd forgotten I had it on.

When I went back to work, Bear was 5 months old and I was still nursing. Trying to, anyway, I never had a lot of milk.

I was immediately assigned to an office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Not moved, assigned.

Which meant that on Monday mornings at 4AM, I would get up and quietly slip to the driveway. A car would take me to the airport, and I would be on the first plane out.

Home again on Thursday nights.

The first trip, I pushed my hospital-grade bright blue breast pump into my large laptop bag. With no room left for my laptop, I stuck that (wrapped in sweatpants) in my suitcase.

As I went through security, they pulled it out of the bag and inspected it down to its little plastic pores. I stood by, blushing.

By the time I got to my gate to wait for my flight, I was sore and leaking. I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I ducked into the big public bathroom. Found an outlet by the sinks and stuck the cups on my breasts under my blouse as subtly as I could (like a cow at a dairy) and stood, facing the wall, as the machine went 'WHOOSHA shug WOOSHA shug'.

With no way to keep the milk cold, and unprepared, I threw it out.

I was the last one on the plane, disheveled and jittery.

The temporary offices I was given didn't even have walls. Just a big room with desks. And there was no working outlet in the bathroom.

At a loss, I found one of the admins and confessed my problem. The only room with a door and an outlet was the conference room. She dutifully scheduled me in for half-hours throughout the days of that first week.

I would exit to a small crowd waiting each time, the bulky bag over my shoulder, and a small cooler over my arm.

The guys would look at me. I wouldn't look back.

At the end of the first week, I arrived home with two coffee thermoses filled with milk and a thousand unshed tears of frustration and embarrassment.

The next week, when I got to the airport, I marched into the American Airlines club and handed over my corporate credit card. 'Sign me up,' I said.

'We aren't paying for this,' my boss said over the phone. 'Policy is only Grade 7 or higher'.

'You're paying,' I informed him, something in my voice I'd never had before.

'Half,' he capitulated.

The manager of the club found me a private office and even reserved one at the North Carolina airport for my trip home. His understanding efficiency, once I was able to articulate what I needed, was fantastic.

But back on site, there just was no alternative. It was the conference room, or out in the open amongst a brigade of tan-panted Engineers and executives.

So it was the conference room. For over a month. Twice a day (I would go back to the hotel at lunchtime).

Everything I have been taught in the American Corporate culture of the technology field has taught me this: to break through the glass ceiling, women can never ask for any consideration or privilege that a man wouldn't ask for.

And as a new mother amongst so many child-free men or fathers of older-children, this standard was even more heavily applied.

If you want the luxury of having a new baby while navigating a career in the upward trajectory - then play it down, baby. Play it down.

But none of that tells you what to do when milk is leaking out of your breasts during a budget meeting. So I would just pop an Advil, discreetly head to the bathroom, trying to remember risks to the return on investment while stuffing toilet paper in my bra. Rinsing the wet spots on my blouse over the sink, and then sticking my chest under the air dryer.

It didn't make me smarter, stronger, or more hardened - in any way. All it made me, as I would slip back into the meeting (with my cell phone obvious in my hand, as though I'd just had to pop out for an emergency call), was a corporate mommy.

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