A Few Thoughts on the Breast Pump

Count Rugen from The Princess Bride said it best: "As you know, the concept of the suction pump is centuries old. Really that's all this is, except that instead of sucking water, I'm sucking life. I've just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five, but I really don't know what that would do to you. So, let's just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?" [Wesley cries and moans in pain].

That's obviously a hyperbolic choice of quotes, but there's something to it on a couple of levels. First of all, the act of pumping is not particularly comfortable (especially at four o'clock in the morning), and the hospital-grade pump that I've rented, while a lovely, buttery shade of yellow, has a knob on it that is deceptively cheerful.  The knob controls the level of suction, which is represented on the digital screen as a row of peppy little droplets, to suggest that the higher you turn the knob, the more delicious, life-sustaining milk you will produce.  This is sort of true, but not necessarily, because there's no baseline for the knob.  It's just at the level that the user left it on the last time, and so it might be set high, but then you turn it on, gasp in surprise, and you're only looking at two or three digital drops, and then you feel like a pansy.   I'm certainly not as big of a bad-ass as Wesley, which I totally recognize.

But secondly, the pump takes time.  Lots of time.  Maybe not years-off-my-life time, but definitely hours-out-of-my day time.  I like to surround myself with magazines or the computer.  If I did Sodoku or the New York Times crossword puzzle, this would also be a pretty good time for it.  And I suppose if I were creating gushing rivers of milk, I'd feel like an earth goddess and mistress of frugality, but it's a pretty measly turn-out, frankly.  But, as my grandmother used to say, them's the breaks.