Pumping at work

My biggest concern when I was about to go back to work was pumping at work.  My workplace is nice to provide us pumping mothers with a lactation room.  There are many pumping mothers at where I work.

The first week after getting back to work, I used Freemie.  My pumping schedule was 9am, 12pm, 3pm and then while driving back from work at 6pm.  At 1pm, during my lunch time, I would go to the lactation room and do marmet.  

Despite having a lactation room, I didn't use it.  I pumped at my cubicle.  My colleagues didn't hear or even realise that I was pumping away.  As my supply was really low, I did power pumping at all times.  Sometimes, while I am pumping and working, I don't even realise how fast time passed.

It was really good and working out for me.  But using the Freemie, my output decreased.  As it is I am not producing much, the decrease was a big impact on me.  I believe the decrease was partly using Freemie as well as stress at work.  Also I can't feel let-down when I do this at work.  The stress is not on me though.  I am still quite free, like before maternity leave.  But the stress is listening to people get scolded, everyone rushing deadline, problems after problems and so on.

So the following week, I decided to use back the breast funnel and shield.  That was yesterday.  And oh my God, I was so tired to the point of fatigue.  And that is only 1 day.  Let me explain why.

When using funnel, my schedule changed to 10am, 1pm, 4pm and then back home, 7pm.  So at 10am, I started heading to the lactation room.  Waited 5 minutes for the lift and walked 5 minutes to the lactation room.  It is located quite far from my office.  Set up the pump takes another 5 minutes and then I proceeded with 30 minutes pump.  Can't do power pump.  Then 5 minutes to pack the pump, 10 minutes to head back to office.  All together 1 hour for 1 session.

At 1pm session, I decided to do a powerpump.  Same thing, takes 15 minutes to lactation room and setup and then proceeded to pump 1 hour and then another 15 minutes back to office.  It's 1.5 hours.

At 4pm, repeated 10am session.  

By that time, I was tired.  The pump though was not very heavy, but the ice pack was super heavy and I had 3 packs of it.  Some colleagues told me to just keep it in the fridge.  Unfortunately, I didn't buy a separate cooler bag.  Mine is attached with the breastpump bag.  So, it was really exhausting.  

By the time I got home, I was dizzy, tired and moody.  Granted if no one complain of the time I am missing from my cubicle then ok.  But if my bosses start seeing my disappearance, don't think it is good for me.  3.5 hours out of my 8 hours of work it's really not good.

Since I found the total output between Freemie and breast funnel is about the same, only an increase of 0.5oz more than Freemie, so, today, I am back with Freemie.  But I feel so sad always seeing only 1.5oz per session.

Hope it gets better soon with Motherlove supplement.

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