And the journey continues

I believe I've settled into something of a routine.

A typical day for me would look like this:

5.30 - 6 am: Wake up, engorged and (sometimes) leaking. Express milk. Yield is usually 7-8 oz. On my worst days (e.g. when I'm sick - this happened twice), I get 5 oz from both breasts. On the best days, almost 9 oz. No matter how much durian/oats/dates I consume, maximum yield is 9 oz.

6 am - 6.30 am: Go back to sleep. In my ideal world I would be exercising/at least be doing some sun salutations. Like I said, in my ideal world.

6.30 - 7.00 am: Get myself washed up and ready for work.

7.00 - 7.30 am: Wake Emma up to nurse. This is so she can drain my breasts, relieving me of the need to pump until at least 11 am. Also, she then stays full until later in the morning, relieving her caregivers of the need to prep her milk so early. This gives time for my maid to get the bulk of her chores done for the day. I also like to think she's getting my hind milk, i.e. the thick, fatty milk that keeps her full (and fat :)) She usually falls right back to sleep after she nurses. Sometimes, she stays awake and is quite content to play by herself until she falls asleep.

7.30 - 7.40 am: Make coffee to go, and blend my smoothie (prepped the night before - more on that below).

7.40 - 8.00 am: Commute to work.

8.00 am - 4.45 pm: Work. I usually pump at least once in our Company's handsome Mother's Room. If my day gets too busy I pump during my lunch hour and during the drive home (with AK driving of course - I haven't mastered the art of driving and pumping. Update: I tried pumping while driving once - epic fail. Not only was I too tense to release any milk, and this is despite being engorged, it was such a messy affair. I ended up with more milk on my clothes than in the bottle ).

4.45 - 5.20 pm: Commute home. Once I get home, depending on her appetite, Emma usually wants to nurse immediately. If I'm lucky she's asleep and I get to either exercise on my elliptical trainer or do a bit of gardening. If I'm too exhausted I usually take Emma up to our room, and she nurses until we both fall asleep. Sometimes if my yield at work is inadequate, I tandem pump and nurse.

My setup at my workplace's fabulous Mothers' Room. This is when I was still using the Freestyle.
 

Evenings are usually a haze of nursing while watching TV,reading, and/or social networking and playing with Emma. When my mum was here we'd sometimes carry her and go for walks around the neighbourhood.

After dinner I'm usually busy packing up my pump stuff (washed and dried by our maid, thankfully) and prepping my soaked oats for breakfast the next day.

9 pm is when we take Emma up to the room to settle into bedtime. We'd either read to her or Daddy would tell her stories. Daddy puts a fresh diaper on her and mummy gives her face and hands a nice rub down, and we both put her in her sleeping bag. She would want to nurse until she falls asleep, usually around 11 pm. I usually follow suit, falling asleep after her daddy unlatches her from me and carries her over to her crib.

Here are some things I do to make life as a working, pumping mum a lot easier:

1) I own two sets of pumps.
It wasn't my intention to buy two, really. The first pump I bought was a Medela Freestyle, which I used only once or twice a day when I was still on leave. While its suction is hardly the best (more on that later), what I really love about it is that this is truly hands-free pump. The pump and its connecting kit is designed to be hands-free. Once you attach it to your nursing bra, there's no worry that anything's going to fall off. The parts also feel solid and seemingly constructed from high quality plastic. BUT the problem with the Freestyle is, well, the pump itself. As I was into my second week back at work my yield started getting less and less. I had to resort to all kinds of self-psyching to try to simulate second letdowns. And I knew, I had to change something soon. So I did a bit more research online, and decided to give Spectra a try. After testing out the M1 and the S9 at pumponthego, I decided to go with the M1. Slightly less high tech (no time indicator), but I felt had a beter "pull" from the breasts, vs. the S9 which felt like the FS, tugging at the nipples only. In order to use the bottles I already had, I also had to purchase the bottle adaptors. The problem with the Spectra is that I can't use it hands-free. Luckily I also purchased a hands-free bra thingy (essentially a tube with holes cut out for the pumps, with some additional supporting fabric). I now use the FS at home, so I am free to move around and am less prone to grogginess-induced spills in the morning. I take the M1 to work, where I have to sit down anyway. I soon learned that the M1 has MUCH stronger suction than what I'm used to with the FS, and I've only been using the massage mode at the highest level, as its suction mode at even the lowest level is painful for me.But even at the massage mode, it packs a powerful punch. Now that I've found my happy groove with my pumping system, I am pretty proud to say that I am an overproducing mum. Not by a lot, but enough to freeze around 20 oz of milk a week.

Best ever yield at work - thanks to the Spectra M1, I believe

2) "Pre-programming"
Let me explain myself here. Once Emma started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, I started waking up at wee hours in the morning engorged. Instead of sleeping it off and just letting Emma latch when she woke up, I pumped. I'd prep my pump kit the night before, assembling everything so that when I woke up, all I had to do was strap on and pump away (this is where the Medela Freestyle and its hands free kit comes in). So even though I was only getting 5-6 hours of sleep at a stretch, I persevered. After pumping and relieving the engorgement, I'd let Emma latch (when she awoke). I'd then let her latch the rest of the day, sometimes pumping and nursing in tandem (though not consistently). I believe the early morning pump is the single most important habit I adopted. I was making my body used to producing more milk at night, and building up a nice inventory at the same time. Now, even when I dont have so much time to pump at work, I know it can't get too bad, with the morning's usual 8-9 oz of freshly expressed milk already in the fridge and the stash of frozen milk in the deep freeze. That way, I don't have to pressure myself about my yield at work, which translates into a more relaxed me, which results in more milk anyway! It could have been a vicious cycle for me(stress-pump less-stress more-pump even less), but thankfully it hasn't been.

Freezer stash. Two drawers filled with nothing but packs of frozen expressed breastmilk for peace of mind

 

3) Morning smoothies
OK, I don't know how much this has contributed, but I do it anyway. Every weekday morning, I drink my milk-booster smoothie. It's a combination of a bunch of really healthy stuff - 1/4 cup of rolled oats, 1 cup sugar free soy milk, a tablespoon or two of coconut oil, two teaspoons ground flaxseeds and a medium banana. This is how I do it. Every week or so I buy a big bunch of bananas, slice them, throw them into a ziploc bag and stash in the freezer. Every night, I mix up a jar of  the rest of the ingredients and leave them to soak in a jar in the fridge overnight. In the morning I just throw in a few slices of frozen banana along with the soaked mixture and whiz away. Lately, in lieau of the upcoming fasting month and all, there's been an abundance of dates in the local grocery stores, so I've been throwing them in as well (removing the seeds before of course). I usually sip on the smoothie on the way to work. Like I said, I don't know if it's really boosting my milk supply, but coconut oil and flaxseeds especially are so good for both mums and babies that I use them anyway.

So that's how I've been doing it so far. I really hope to be able to keep this up until Emma turns one. We'll see.