Wanderboobs, Part One

Hello Dear Boobjuicers and Friends!

A very happy Thanksgiving to you all, wherever you may be. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday - all of the food and none of the shopping! Plus I like to try to maintain a grateful disposition, and this is one day of the year where my sappiness is seasonally appropriate. So please indulge me as I say that today I am immensely grateful for my fantastic husband and beautiful, sweet, healthy son, and for the amazing gift which is the me that grew that little guy and nourished him for 21 months. Not that I'm not still nourishing him, just, you know, less directly. And as we all know because the news folks remind us eight jillion times a year, Thanksgiving is the busiest travel holiday of the year, and therefore seems like a great time to begin the long-awaited Travel Stories.

A lot of breadwinning, boobjuicing mamas have to travel for their jobs, whether all the time in a sales gig or occasionally to conferences. There are a lot of ways to handle this - as I have chronicled before, my choice was possibly the most expensive and least practical, but suited me best, which was to bring Kiddo and sometimes Hubby with me all the time. This is not tenable for most families, even if you have friends (read: free babysitting) all over the country. Frankly it wasn't particularly tenable for us either, financially speaking, but for one year we made it work - let's just say this wasn't the year we got that housing down payment up towards the 20% level. But emotionally, for me, it was the right thing to do.

It was also the easiest in terms of breastfeeding, although of course there are the same timing challenges that one always experiences when balancing breadwinning with boobjuicing. I think the funniest example, which did not feel funny at the time, was when I was first trying to convince my current company that I was all that and a bag of chips and they should hire me and move me to Oregon. (Did I mention I courted this company for 18 months before I got an offer, and that Kiddo was born in the midst of that? Do not let some naysayer tell you that you cannot switch jobs while having kids).

We all three flew to Oregon when Kiddo was about three months old. I had a lunch arranged with an acquaintance at the firm, and then some informational interviews with some of his colleagues. We had flown in the previous day, or maybe two days ahead, but I know I didn't have time to accumulate more than one bottle of breastmilk in the fridge of my sister's apartment, where we were staying. So Hubby and Brother-in-law (Uncle E) drove me to the lunch meeting early, where we all sat in the guest parking lot and I nursed kiddo right before the lunch, praying that he would decide he was done before I was either late or had to oust him. Somehow that worked without him screaming his head off. I met my now colleague for lunch, while Hubby and Uncle E went to another nearby eatery. We met back up an hour and a half later in the same parking lot, where I had like 27 minutes before my informational interviews started. I nursed Kiddo again, the whole time praying in gratitude that he wanted to nurse, rather than sleep through my break and wake up hungry 60 seconds before I had to get out of the car. Of course I could have spent this time pumping, but I wasn't very familiar with pumping yet so it seemed like the only option to nurse.

Then came the tough part. I had an unknown amount of time, possibly three hours, before I could leave and go nurse Kiddo again, and Hubby had one not particularly large bottle of milk in the fridge. If he had spilled it I was sure the entire universe would implode, starting with a small black hole in the middle of my chest. (This is absurd of course, he would have soothed the baby until I showed up, but it didn't seem that way.) As it turns out I was only in meetings for two hours, so that helped. I called and Hubby had used the bottle and wanted me home ASAP but Kiddo was sleeping, and of course coming to get me in the rental car meant maybe waking up the baby. So Uncle E, sweet darling that he is, got a zipcar and came to whisk me and the girls home to our waiting Kiddo, who survived the whole ordeal unscathed.

Phew!

I can't say I *recommend* job hunting with a tiny tike, but we don't always have a choice, or want to wait another year to get out of a gig. So I offer this example of how traveling (in this case as part of a job search) can indeed work out.

Let me say for the umpteenth time that my method was best for me, but was expensive and elaborate. Please do not feel you have to do it my way or not travel until you and your little one are done with the boobjuicing. I have collected more stories from other mamas who did it differently than I did and will start sharing those soon!

Happy Thanksgiving, happy boobjuicing, and safe travels to all!

Much love,
Suzi