Food For Thought

A week has passed since I returned to work.   All in all, it's been an easy transition.  While I'm at the office, I am almost convinced that all is the same.  I easily slipped back into work mode, and Otter at home seems like a fiction I created to get a 5-month leave.  There are however some changes that are a bit harder to overlook.

1)  Pumping at work...  Around the time I was nearing birthing-day, I blogged about having the last shreds of modesty stripped away by my doctors.  In thinking I had fallen as far as I could, I was sorely mistaken.  There is nothing quite like sitting on the floor of an audio booth (with a glass door that you've covered in orange construction paper and packing tape for privacy) with a double electric pump attached to your boobs whirring away, to teach you about humility. That, and an every-growing respect for bovines.

2)  The end of the workday has changed to between 5:30 and 6, so that I can make it home in time.  While this sounds great on paper (or computer screen, as the case may be), the end of the day hardly guarantees the end of work.  More often than not, something that would have taken me 45 minutes to do had I just stayed at the office, will have to be picked up several hours later from home, and invariable take 3 times as long to complete.

3)  Apparently, I have taken all the subconscious stress of returning to work and single-mindedly siphoned it into an obsession about how much Otter is eating.  This seems to be my "go-to" place for worry.  I see my hard-earned milk supply dwindling, wonder how long I will work-pump before losing my mind, and begin to panic about SB's inevitable starvation.  Logical thoughts - that a) I might just be able to keep up pumping, b) she'll be starting solids soon and c) there is always (heaven forbid) FORMULA to supplement with - are lost on me.

As I try to navigate this new, dual life I can only tell myself that I'm not the first to go down this road and it will get easier.  I just wish I knew how soon...