okay so naima is almost 7 months old now and i’m back at work full time. i’m doing a mix of remote and in-office, which is fine, but the logistics of pumping are starting to really stress me out. my employer is supposedly supportive. they have a room.
they say i can pump whenever i need to. but then my calendar fills up with back-to-back calls and meetings, and suddenly that ‘whenever’ feels like ‘never’. i try to schedule pump breaks but people just invite me to things right over them. yesterday i had to take a 20 min call in the bathroom bc my boss scheduled a “quick chat” right when i needed to pump and couldn’t push it.
it felt so undignified and honestly, i just started crying in there for a minute. i’m trying to figure out the math. i need about 30 mins to pump, 3 times a day, minimum. that’s 1.5 hours of dedicated time that isn’t meeting time.
but my workday is like 8 hours of back-to-back meetings. how are other moms doing this? are you just saying no to everything? are you pumping during meetings?
how do you even manage that? i’ve started trying to block out my calendar with fake “focus time” but it feels like i’m being sneaky. i guess i just want to know if i’m overthinking this or if this is just the reality of trying to keep a baby fed while also trying to keep a job. does anyone have any tricks for making sure the pumping schedule actually happens when your work calendar is insane?