Difficult

Well, week one of back to work is over. I wish I could say it went fine. I suppose it could have been worse, but it was pretty difficult. For all of us. John brought him to me at lunchtime on Monday, and for the first time he kept his eyes glued to my face for the entire time he nursed. I know he was thinking, Where did you go? It was as if I had broken his trust, disappearing like that. By the end of the day he was a wreck, and greeted me with sobs when I walked in the door at five. He had been crying for almost an hour. An hour! So unthinkable to me, since he has been such an agreeable baby. My poor baby. I suppose we could have practiced more with the bottle to make him more accustomed to taking it, but I think he still would have had a fit. Wouldn't you? What if someone suddenly took away your morning cup of coffee or tea, or whatever it is that guides you gently into the waking world each day, and handed you a caffeine pill instead? Sure, you'd get what your body demanded, but that's not really the whole point of it now, is it? You'd protest, too. Perhaps loudly and insistently.

I used to see the breast pump as my little friend--my key to a couple of hours of freedom. Now I tuck it out of sight in the corner so I don't grimace when I catch a glimpse of the wicked thing. At work, I'd be carrying my stupid plastic pump parts to and from the communal sink, and one of my female colleagues would say in a conspiratorial tone, "Oh I remember that." How did this become the norm? How did this become the expectation, that women would give up their babies to return to the more "important" work of making money? That employers would set aside special, private places for women to plug themselves in and lactate away? That this is somehow a solution? Dear God, the perversities we tolerate in the name of progress... in the name of feminism, even!