workingmom I am lucky to be married for 8 years to my high school sweetheart. We had our first child in Nov. 2007 and are expecting #2 in July 2009. My husband and I both work full time for large companies and are hoping to someday own our own business so we don't have to do that anymore. View all articles | Contact author

I wish that I was lucky enough to be able to stay home with my daughter, but we are a two income family.  One of the main reasons is Insurance.  Mine is GREAT!  My husband is diabetic and with my insurance all of his diabetic supplies are free- you just can't beat that.  If we were to switch to his insurance, we would have to start paying for all of his supplies, so I get in my car everyday and drive the 35 miles and go to work.  There are many days I wish that I didn't have to, but I do.  We have gone back and forth about 1,000 ways trying to make things work with out me working, but the only thing we can come up with is to try to win the lottery from time to time if we have an "extra" dollar.

As I mentioned, I live about 35 miles from work.  One thing that we had to decide about was daycare.  I found a home daycare about 3 miles from my work that came recommended from a dear friend of mine.  I personally think that having a daycare close to your work as opposed to close to your home is great in many ways.  If you have a doctor's appointment, you can just pick your child up on the way.  It is that much "extra" time you get to spend with your child.  It worked out in our family for my husband to drop our daughter off at daycare.  For several different reasons- mainly because I have a hard time leaving her, but it also allows them to have special daddy-daughter time.  Then I am able to pick her up after work and we have our special mommy-daughter time on the way home.  We sing songs, count, etc. and it is one of my favorite times of the day.  If she went to daycare near our home, we wouldn't get that "extra" time in. 

As a nursing mom, going to work everyday was difficult for me in a lot of different ways, but we were able to make it through.  My daughter just turned 15 months and we are working on weaning, but only because I am pregnant with child #2.

One of the big things to know as a working mother who is nursing is that your place of employment by law (in Illinois at least) is required to provided you with a place other then a restroom to pump.  I was originally placed in a locker room, but I had to walk through the rest room to get to the locker room.  The door locked, so the locker room was ok…it had a locker for me to put my stuff in, it was private, there was an outlet, I could wash my stuff out without going out of the area, but I still had to go through the rest room to get there and leave with my milk. 

I went to my manager, and asked if there was anywhere else where I could pump.  She said that the locker room was really the only place.  I then asked her in a professional manner if she took her lunch into the rest room with her.  She looked at me with a very strange face and said no, I told her that I didn't like walking through the rest room with my daughters' lunch.  Later that afternoon I had an office to pump in.  There was not a lock on the door, but I put a sign up saying Office in Use, Please do not enter and kept my back to the door.  I never had a problem. 

I pumped twice a day for 20 minutes each. Once on my morning break, then once on my afternoon break.  As I mentioned before my daughter is in daycare about 3 miles from my work so instead of pumping at lunch too, I just went to her daycare and nursed.  It was great -again, additional time with my daughter.

I have gotten the question a lot of what I did with the milk after I pumped.  I got a small lunch cooler, one with the hard sides.  It was really bigger then I needed for just the milk, but I also put my lunch and snacks in it as well.  It worked out great because I just put an ice pack in my lunch box and it kept the milk cold until I got home.  Because the hard cooler was so large and bulky I tried a "flimsy" cooler, but I did not think it stayed as cool, so I went back to the hard cooler. 

What pump worked best for me?  Well, I used a Playtex electric double pump for pumping.  It was approx. $100 at Wal-Mart.  I did have an incident one day where my pump quit working, I called the baby sitter who is about 3 miles away from my work and she said that my daughter had already eaten, so I went into panic mode.  I ran out to Wal-Mart and I bought the same one.  I called Playtex when I got home.  I explained to them what happened and they said that the pump must have burned out.  They sent me a replacement via overnight delivery and I received it the next day, even though I called them after 5:00.  I sent the burned up one back, no questions asked.  I didn't even have my receipt for the first one I purchased.  The people there were great.  I would recommend this pump to anyone!  The "cups" are silicone and very comfortable.   I have a friend who was pumping at the same time as me and she had the Medela pump.  She paid 3x what I paid and she did not have the comfortable cups.  She was jealous all the way around.